


Happy to help

by vivianblakesunrisebay



Series: Patrick Brewer hours [1]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Gay Relationship, Episode: s03e08 Motel Review, Episode: s03e13 Grad Night, Falling In Love, Gay Panic Hiking, M/M, Masturbation, POV Patrick Brewer, Patrick Brewer is Gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2020-12-24 23:15:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21107588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vivianblakesunrisebay/pseuds/vivianblakesunrisebay
Summary: Does the world need another canon retelling from Patrick's POV? Probably not, but here it is!Current chapter: It's Grad Night!





	1. Winning

Patrick gave David Rose his card, but he thought there was an even chance he’d never hear from him again. 

He didn’t have much time to think about it, though, because he had to go to a lunch meeting with Bev Wilcox, who owned an apple orchard about twenty miles away. He was helping her gather the necessary documentation to get her applesauce certified as organic. The meeting ran long, because Bev had scheduled the meeting at the same time as her grown niece’s birthday party, which was strange, and she kept pressing birthday cake and apple cake on him as he tried to politely excuse himself.

When Patrick got back to Ray’s, he checked his phone and saw that he had nine voicemails from an unfamiliar number. He put his phone on speaker and pressed play on the first one, expecting a robocall.

_“Hi David, it’s Patrick. I, um, was just calling to run my business plan, uh, by you in a little more detail. So feel free to give me a call back, and I will be happy to walk you through it. Okay, ciao.”_

Patrick realized with amazement that _all nine_ messages were from David. _Hi David, it’s Patrick._ Patrick smiled. Oh, this was going to be good. He played the rest of the messages:

_“Hi Patrick, yeah, I think, I think I called you David. Which, that’s not—that’s not your name! You can just delete that text, the—the voicemail that I left you. Um, just thought it might be a good idea to give you some background information about the—the store. It’s basically a general store. Um, that will support local artists under the brand of the store, which, which would also be my brand—”_

_“Yeah, the text cut us off. What I’m saying is, my brand would be an umbrella. For the vendors. But not the customer. I mean—for the customer they wouldn’t see the umbrella. The spokes, I mean. Not the spokes, I don’t know why I said that. I mean my brand would unify the products—because of the look, and the experience of being in the store, and that’s, that’s what I meant by an immersive experience. Bye.”_

_“Immersive is a real word by the way. It has meaning. Just because there are buzzwords, that does not mean that words don’t, um, have meaning anymore? There would be a—a color palette in my store, very light colors, and with all the light, all the windows—it would be an environment. An immersive environment. Sand and stone. Those are the colors. I have—I have a mood board. I’m still tinkering with it, but it exists.”_

_“Mood boards are real too, in case you’re doubting that. Okay, this is it—bye."_

_“Hi. Just one more thing. When you can’t get eye cream from Paris you are forced to be creative. You are forced to do research on the environment in which you find yourself, to find products with eucalyptus in them. These things exist, but people don’t look for them, because people are lazy and don’t care about things that are important. But, um, they would care. They would see it in my store and they would care. They would buy it. Um, bye.”_

_“I don’t mean I would only sell eye cream. There are other things. Also. There are farmers around here that make cheese. Really good cheese. Cheese that you would sell your firstborn child for. And wine. Wine that you would sell your second born child for—second born? Is that how you say that? That’s a weird thing to say. Forget I said that. It’s really good wine, is what I’m saying. Wine that I would sell. In my store. Hanging up now."_

_“Ok, I’m calling back, but this is important. I forgot to say, I would carry general store things too. Like, basic essential things. Toilet plungers. In the back. I mean, were you ever in the general store? I never saw you there. Not that I—I just mean everyone goes there. Went there. They put fungal cream next to the cereal! Like, if you think I can’t do better than that, I just don’t know what to tell you. Bye.”_

_“Rose Apothecary is the name. If deciding on the name is so important, that’s it. I’ve decided. In fact, I’m writing it down on the form right now. It’s right here. Oh, fuck—” _A rustling noise, and then the message ended.

The last message was from almost an hour later: _“Hi, this is David Rose. I think I may have left you some messages earlier. If you could delete them that would be great.”_

Patrick put his hand over his mouth. He wanted to laugh. The messages were … something. Of course. 

But—

If he understood what David was saying, this idea was … actually good. Actually really good.

It was perfect for the location, for the community. It filled two gaps in the local market—one created by the closing of the general store, and another that people probably didn’t even realize was a gap, but they would once the store opened. Local farmers and craftspeople—and there were a lot of them in this area— currently had to go all the way to the farmer’s market in Elm Valley to sell their products. This business would give them a place to do it right here in Schitt’s Creek, and it would do more than that: it would save them the time and hassle of marketing, branding, and distribution.

Patrick felt a stab of something—longing? One of the things he had loved in business school were the classes on entrepreneurship; he’d always been fascinated with the idea of starting a business, but no idea had ever presented itself to him. He had envied people who had that creative spark, that ability to see what didn’t exist, but what could exist. Vision.

He’d gotten this job with Ray a month ago because he had just left his home town very suddenly, without a plan, and he'd needed a job right away. But he liked the fact that Ray was an entrepreneur, if a slightly scattered one, and that he’d promised Patrick that he would be helping local entrepreneurs. It would be mostly helping them get their tax filings and other paperwork in order, but it sounded better than what he’d been doing, and he’d needed a job, and so he’d taken it.

He’d had no idea that any of the local entrepreneurs he would be helping would be anything like David Rose.

Patrick put in his earbuds to listen to David’s messages again. He took out a blank business application and started writing, David’s voice vibrating in his ear. _Hi David, it’s Patrick._ Patrick bit back a smile.

When he was done with the forms, he played the messages a third time, and thought about the man himself.

Patrick’s first impression of David had been that he was handsome, in a way you wouldn’t expect someone to be in a town like Schitt’s Creek, and he carried himself with a natural confidence that bordered on arrogance. When David had opened his mouth, though, he sounded … clueless. Clueless about business, anyway; clueless about what he wanted his business to be, clueless even about how to fill out a form. Patrick had found the whole thing quite funny.

David had also struck Patrick as someone who cared a lot about the impression that he was creating, and that made Patrick want to poke at him a little bit. David had been so easily nettled, it was fun. Patrick knew he was being a little bit … something, with David, not rude exactly, but probably not how he should be treating a customer he was supposed to be helping. Customer B13.

At the end of it, Patrick had given David his card and offered to help, thinking David would probably give up on the whole idea of his _branded immersive experience,_ but—David had actually called. And these messages—these testy, incoherent messages—showed that David, clueless as he might be about the practical aspects of business, had the originality and the spark of a good entrepreneur. Vision.

Patrick listened to the messages a fourth time. They were so, just so … ridiculous. And perfect. Perfectly ridiculous. How could someone be so brilliant and so utterly ludicrous at the same time?

The messages showed something else, Patrick thought—David really wanted this. David wanted this so much that even though he seemed aware that he was making a bit of a fool of himself, and he was obviously embarrassed by the messages he was leaving, he kept calling back and leaving more.

David wanted this, and Patrick could help him get it. He really could.

Patrick realized he really, really wanted to help; he wanted to help bring this idea, this good idea, to fruition. And it had been a while, a very long while, since there had been anything that he really, really wanted.

*

When he was younger, people had often told Patrick how determined he was: that he went after what he wanted and didn’t stop til he got it. His mother liked to tell a story about when he was in third grade: Shelley Reynolds had told him on the first day of school that she was going to win the spelling cup, an award given at the end of the year to the student with the highest average on the weekly spelling tests. Patrick had told Shelley that no, actually, _he_ was going to win it, and he studied and studied and studied his spelling that year, every week, and at the end of the year he won it. 

His mom loved that story and she always beamed at him like a proud mom, which was sweet, but Patrick actually didn’t like it, because what he remembered about that year is that he didn’t care about spelling, he only cared about winning. After that year, without Shelley to compete with, he’d gone back to his usual attitude about spelling tests. As he got older he came to see that people who only cared about winning were mostly assholes, and he didn’t want to be an asshole. He wanted to be someone who would become a spelling champion because he really liked spelling and cared about it, not because he was an asshole who wanted to beat Shelley Reynolds.

When he was a kid, though, it was easy to find things to go after, things he liked, things he thought were worth doing. Baseball, for example. He liked winning games, but he also liked practicing—practicing his hitting, his catching, his pitching; setting goals to improve his batting average, to hit more home runs, to pitch faster, to strike out more batters, to catch more fly balls. He didn’t think he was particularly gifted, but he was willing to spend hours and hours in his backyard, hitting ball after ball as long as he could get someone to pitch to him, and playing catch until it was too dark to see the ball.

In school, the structure of it lent itself to his focused, goal-oriented approach to life. He did well in his classes, he played baseball, he sang in choir and appeared in the school musicals. All of his friends started to get girlfriends, so he got one too. When he went to college, he picked business as a major not because of a strong passion for it but because he was good at math and he liked the idea of doing something practical. He enjoyed business school, though. He liked the logic of numbers, he liked detangling complicated problems and boiling them down to orderly equations and reaching an answer. Each problem was a tiny goal to reach, adding up to the bigger goal of the assignment, the test, the class, all the little goals marching into the bigger goals and graduation as the ultimate goal at the end. 

After he graduated, though, it all kind of fell apart. 

Most of his fellow business majors moved to Toronto and got jobs at big accounting firms; there was a flurry at the end of his senior year, with everyone applying and comparing their signing bonuses, one upping each other. Patrick felt the pull of it, the desire to to get the biggest signing package and the biggest salary, to compete and to win. But what was it_ for?_ Moving money around? Making rich people richer?

Also, he liked small town life. He could see himself living in a small town, maybe running his own business, if he could figure out a business he’d like to start. But, he couldn’t. For the first time in his life, he had nothing to aim for, nothing to strive for. He got a job as an accountant at the seed company in his hometown. He got back together with Rachel, his girlfriend from high school, even though things had never really felt right with her. It was all temporary, everything was temporary, while he tried to figure out what he actually wanted to do with his life.

But he hadn’t figured it out. And he had stayed, and stayed, and stayed, for eight years, while at the same time breaking up and getting back together with Rachel, over and over again. None of it felt right. All the time, he knew he wanted more; he wanted more than Rachel, he wanted more than his job; he felt it; every day, he felt it. He didn’t want something big, he just wanted something that was _his. _

He knew he could get it, too; he felt that fierce determination, still inside him. He would work for it and get it and win it—if he could only find something to want.

*

And now, today, he felt that spark. For the first time in eight years, he’d found something that really felt worth doing. It was exactly the type of idea that Patrick would have loved to come up with, when he’d thought about starting his own business. Patrick could see so clearly how it would work; he itched to get his hands on it and do some real research about it. David needed his help. The things that David knew nothing about, were exactly the things that Patrick did know. Patrick would let David handle the mood boards and the _branded immersive experience_, and Patrick would handle the licenses and the taxes and what the price markup would be on the products they sold.

He felt giddy; gleeful. He could do this. He could really do this.

Patrick took out his phone. He went to his recent calls and, before hitting the “call back” button, he created a new contact for the number.

He paused. Now his nine most recent calls all said _David Rose._ He felt a little shiver of something. His thumb hovered over the call icon.

Wait.

What was he offering to do exactly? 

Go into business with someone he just met earlier today? Quit the job he just got a month ago?

A month ago, Patrick had made the first impulsive decision of his life, when he left his fiancee and moved here and took the first job he could find. He didn’t regret that. But … maybe he didn’t need to be making any more impulsive decisions just now. He was a little shocked at himself; it was very unlike him.

Patrick put his phone away. He’d call David back later. He took the forms he had filled out for him and put them in his “in process” folder. Then he tidied up his desk. He filed the paperwork for Bev Wilcox’s organic applesauce; he put his pen back in the pen holder. He liked a neat workspace. He picked up the little slip of paper with B13 on it. He went to throw it away, but then instead he folded it up, and put it in his pocket.

*

Before Patrick could call him back, David came back himself. He was holding the forms Patrick had given him. The touch of arrogance he had had earlier had been sluiced away. His voice was quiet, almost timid, when said he messed up his form, and asked for another. Patrick thought again of how much David must want this, to keep trying when he was so out of his element.

Patrick was going to help David, he wanted to help David—but, he was going to do it in a normal way, not a “I just met you, why don’t we go into business together” kind of way. Patrick showed David the forms he had filled out for him, told him that his idea was good, and that he would call when he heard something about the results of the application. 

He couldn’t resist one more little jab; there was something about David that made Patrick want to keep poking him. “And hey, if I don’t get ahold of you,” he said, “I’ll just … leave a message.”

David said “Okay,” his mouth twisting into something between a smile and a grimace. Something about that little sheepish look pierced something inside Patrick, and it went straight to his head.

Patrick felt giddy, for the second time that day.

*

Ray made homemade pizza for dinner, and Patrick helped him. Patrick sliced pepperoni, cut up onions and peppers and mushrooms. Ray liked lots of toppings, and Patrick was flexible; he’d eat anything.

Patrick had already heard a lot about the people of Schitt’s Creek, because Ray talked a lot. Ray had talked about the Rose family, but only in broad, general terms. Patrick knew about Rose Video, of course; he’d even worked at one once, in high school, and he’d vaguely heard that the family had experienced some kind of financial disaster a few years ago. Apparently they owned the town, and that was the reason they were here, but in practical terms that amounted to very little.

Patrick knew that all he had to do was say _So tell me about David Rose,_ and Ray would start talking. It was a completely natural thing to bring up, given that Patrick had met him today and helped him. But somehow he felt shy about it; he couldn’t make the words come out.

So he asked instead about the photos Ray had taken today, the engagement photos. He thought that might lead to Ray remembering that David had come in when he was taking the pictures, but Ray just gushed about how well he thought the pictures were going to come out. Patrick had his doubts about that, but he just smiled and nodded.

“The theme was ‘sports,’” Ray said. “Theresa’s mother said she was sporty, so I got out my sports equipment to use as props, but all I had were ping pong paddles and badminton rackets. They said they didn’t play, but I think on the whole it went very well.”

Sports. Patrick remembered David saying _I don’t play cricket,_ and wanted to laugh.

Ray had gone silent. Patrick told himself to stop being stupid. Asking about David was a totally normal thing to do. “So, you know I helped David Rose today,” he said.

“Oh yes,” Ray said, but he still seemed to be thinking about something else.

Patrick tried again. “He’s leasing the general store.”

More silence. 

“Ray.”

Ray snapped out of his reverie about sports equipment, or whatever it was. “Yes, Patrick, I told you that, don’t you remember? _I_ remember, of course, because I am making the commission on the lease!” He laughed happily.

Ray took a bite of his pizza. He seemed to have forgotten that he gossiped endlessly about anyone who came up in conversation. 

“His business plan seems promising,” Patrick tried.

Ray lowered his voice, “I have to say, Patrick, that what I heard of his phone messages did not give that impression.”

“No, it is,” Patrick said, annoyed. “It’s a very good idea. He just needs a little help.”

Ray said, “Well, I am very happy for him that he got the general store lease after all.”

“After all? Did someone else want it?”

“Yes, it was going to be a Christmas World! It was all set. Ronnie told me that even Mrs. Rose voted for it. But then Christmas World pulled out, which was very sad. But good news for David, of course!”

Patrick knew David’s mother was on the town council. “She voted against her own son?”

“Yes, she did, apparently!” Ray said. “But, you know, Patrick, people seem to find it very delightful to be able to buy Christmas ornaments year round. I suppose she was thinking about that!”

Patrick sensed a story there. He wondered if this was part of the reason David wanted this to succeed so badly. He felt a pang of sympathy for David, that his own mother had voted against him.

*

Later, Patrick was emptying his pockets, getting ready for bed, and he found the folded slip of paper from earlier. B13. He smoothed it out and put it on his nightstand. He would throw it away later. He got the rest of the way undressed, put on a t-shirt and PJ pants, and got into the bed.

Lying there in the dark, he pictured David again in his mind’s eye. He saw the way his hands moved when he talked, his rings catching the light; his dark eyes with the dramatic slash of eyebrow, that surprisingly sweet, lopsided smile when Patrick teased him. His face was so expressive, even when he wasn’t talking; it showed so readily the emotions flitting across his face, his reactions to what Patrick was saying, his eyes flashing, his mouth so mobile, his lips—so soft, so perfectly shaped—

Patrick felt again that unfamiliar giddiness. 

He wondered—he thought of what it might be like—to kiss those lips.

He felt a jolt; followed by a wave of heat that swept over him and went straight to his cock. All at once he was hard and throbbing. 

Oh.

He put his hand on his cock. There was hand lotion on the other side of the room, that he used when he masturbated before he went to sleep, sometimes. Right now, though, it felt too far away. He wrapped his hand around his cock and thought again of David’s mouth; he imagined that mouth on his. He imagined touching David’s body, running his hands up under his sweater and touching skin; he imagined sliding his hand inside David’s pants; he imagined it was David’s cock he was touching right now, instead of his own. At that thought Patrick’s hand tightened; he felt he had to come, he _had_ to, now, right away; he stroked his cock that was David’s cock, once, twice, three times—and then he was coming, and coming, more intensely than he ever had in his life.

Patrick lay back quietly, letting his heart rate go back to normal.

This had not been well planned. He hadn’t even pulled down the covers. There was come on the top sheet, and on his t-shirt, as well as on his hand and on his stomach. He had to go clean up.

He felt, raw, somehow. Exposed. Like something had been stripped away.

But he also felt … exhilarated. He was buzzing with nervous energy. He felt he could get up and climb a mountain, right now.

He had found something else to want.

Some_one_ to want. 

For the first time in his life.


	2. Startup money

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to wild-aloof-rebel on tumblr for telling me David's baseball sweatshirt is Givenchy!

The next day, he did climb a mountain.

He asked Ray if there were any good hikes around here, and Ray pointed him to Rattlesnake Point. It felt good to stretch his legs and burn off some energy.

He needed to think.

When he got to the top, the view was beautiful. Patrick sat down to take it in. It was a warm day, but the trees made it shady and pleasant, and a faint breeze was blowing. Everything was quiet. 

It had occurred to him before, that he might be gay.

The truth was, he had never enjoyed sex with Rachel that much, or any of the other girls he dated when he and Rachel were broken up.

He’d struggled to understand, even to himself, why he felt the way he did about sex. Orgasms felt good, so why didn’t he like sex? Why did he never look forward to it, why did it feel like something he had to psych himself up for? And why did it loom so large, so that an hour out of his life, once or twice a week—the frequency he and Rachel had settled on— colored so much of the rest of the relationship, and overshadowed the good things? But it had. He found it draining, he dreaded it, he even resented her sometimes. But he knew she wasn’t wrong, to want sex and affection from him. He just couldn’t stop how he felt. 

So he would break up with Rachel, try dating another girl, feel the same dissatisfactions and resentments, and then run back to Rachel because at least she was familiar, and they understood each other. Over and over again.

He thought maybe he just wasn’t very sexual, that he just had a really low sex drive. But somehow, that hadn’t felt like the answer. He wanted _more_ than what he had, not less. He wanted love, and affection; he wanted to want someone, to _want_ to touch someone. He saw what other people had; he heard about it in books and songs and movies, and everywhere. He wanted it too, he could feel it buried inside him, the longing for it.

So, he had thought that being gay was a logical possibility, but living in a small town, it wasn’t easy to think of ways to figure it out. And even though, sometimes, he thought there had been glimmers of it, there had never been a time when he was obviously, definitely attracted to another guy.

Until now. 

Patrick thought of David again, thought again about being able to kiss him and touch him. At just the thought of it, his skin started prickling, he felt hot and cold all over, and his dick started to wake up.

He’d never felt this way before, about anyone.

He decided to go on the assumption that he was … probably gay. 

“I’m gay,” he said out loud, experimentally. 

_Kiss him and you’ll know for sure,_ said a voice in his head. Patrick felt hot all over, again, at that thought; his skin prickled, again; his dick woke up, again. Well, it was starting to be predictable, at least.

He knew he was getting way ahead of himself. But isn’t this what people did? They met someone they liked, they thought about kissing them; they got giddy at the idea?

_Love at first sight,_ the voice said.

That was ridiculous, of course. Attraction, that’s what he was feeling. But that didn’t feel strong enough to describe it. A crush. That’s the word he would go with. He had a crush on David.

_So what are you going do about it? _

That voice again. The voice felt like a different, more daring, version of himself. A gay version of himself.

_Oh, you’re gay all right,_ said the voice—gay Patrick’s voice. _What are you going to do about it?_

What _was_ he going to do about it? In this small town, there had to be a way to find out if David was gay or not. Patrick was from a small town, everyone knew everyone’s business. But he shied away from the thought of asking anyone; it would sound like he was just gossiping. But if he said the real reason he wanted to know … there was no way he could say to Ray, do you know if David is gay? I’m thinking of asking him out.

_Why not?_

Patrick ignored that. The whole idea was impossible.

He realized, though, that he actually didn’t need to ask David on a date, in order to see him again. He could help him with his business application, and that would give Patrick a chance to see him and get to know him a little bit. The thought was like a balm on his tangled feelings. He took a deep breath. Yes, that was perfect. That would give him a chance to see if this crush was real or just a—just a … blip. And in the meantime, maybe he could try to find out somehow whether David was gay or not.

If their meetings yesterday were any indication, David was going to need a lot of help with his application.

Patrick smiled. He couldn’t stop smiling. He was going to see David again. He was grinning like a fool at just the prospect of it, but there was no one here to see; it was fine.

Everything was fine. He had a plan.

*

That night, at dinner, Ray suddenly said, “Patrick, you should meet more young people. You have been here for a month and you never go anywhere. You should mingle! When David was here yesterday, you should have asked him to show you around.”

Patrick felt as though he had been sliced open. It was like Ray was inside his head, reading his mind, seeing all his thoughts. Was he so obvious?

“You need to make friends your own age!” Ray said. 

Oh, okay, of course. Ray was just talking about making friends. 

But then he winked. So, what did that mean?

_Why do you care?_ gay Patrick said.

Patrick thought about that, and he realized something. 

He was new in town. This wasn’t like his hometown, where everyone had known him since birth. Here, he could be anyone. People could think, oh, Patrick? That new guy? Is he gay? and maybe he was, and it was fine if he was! Hadn’t he decided today that he probably was?

_Oh, you are._

Patrick felt a weight lifting off his shoulders. He felt lighter, a million pounds lighter.

Ray had recovered all his usual gossipy chattiness, and he started telling Patrick about all the young people in town. He told him about Alexis, David’s sister, and how she had dated Ted the veterinarian, and also Mutt Schitt, the mayor’s son, but then he had moved away. Then Ray mentioned Stevie, who owned the motel. “Roland said Stevie and David were an item for awhile, but I have to tell you, Patrick, I never thought they were more than just good friends. Of course it is none of my business!” Ray said, like he hadn’t spend the last fifteen minutes gossiping.

Patrick was suddenly paying very close attention. “Stevie?” Was that a man or a woman?

“Yes, she inherited the motel from her aunt, and now she and Johnny Rose are running the motel together.”

She. So, Stevie was a woman. Patrick’s heart sank. 

Patrick knew this was very tenuous information, that he shouldn’t listen to gossip anyway, that David wasn’t necessarily straight even if he had dated a woman_ (bisexuals exist, Patrick)_, and that Patrick had just decided this morning that he was going to focus on helping David with his business filings rather than on asking him out.

He told himself all of this.

He still felt bitterly disappointed.

*

Patrick got to work on David’s paperwork. The email notifying him of the license approval came through—all they did was run a name check for that part. The more complicated part was the license to sell food, because there were regulations and health codes that had to be followed. David was planning to sell food from many different vendors, too, which made things even more complicated. Patrick wanted to do a little more research before he called him back.

After three days, though, David called him. Patrick’s heart leapt when his phone lit up with David’s name.

“Hello?” he said.

“I was just wondering if you’ve heard anything,” David said without any preamble.

“I’m sorry?” Patrick said politely. Just because Patrick had been thinking about David nonstop for three days didn’t mean David had to know that.

“Oh. This is David,” David said. “I’m calling about my business license. I’m wondering if you’ve heard anything.”

_David who?_ Patrick thought about saying, but maybe that was a bit much.

“You’re good, actually,” Patrick said. “The business license is the easy part.”

David seemed put out. “Oh, I see. That was the _easy part_.”

“Yes, they just run a check to see if there is already another business using the name you chose.”

“And?”

“And, amazingly enough, no one is using Rose Apothecary.”

“Okay,” David said.

“Apparently no one else is quite timeless enough.”

“Okay,” David said again. Now he sounded annoyed. “So I’m good then?”

“They’ll send a hard copy of the license, but yes, you’re good.”

“Okay. I thought you were going to call to let me know, but okay.”

Patrick didn’t answer. He was thrilled that David sounded put out by the fact that he hadn’t called, even if it was only over his business license.

David said, in a wrapping-up voice, “Well, I guess that’s—”

Patrick jumped in. “What’s a little more complicated is your food handler’s permit.”

“Um. My what?”

“It gives you … permission? To handle food?”

There was a silence.

“You are planning to sell food in your store, right?” Patrick said.

David suddenly burst out, “I don’t have time for this! I’m calling _strangers_ to try to find vendors for my store. I’m talking to people I should never have to talk to. I was just talking with some Amish farmers who hate me because when I was staying with them I used their buttermilk to give myself a facial.”

A buttermilk facial? Patrick smiled into the phone. He said, “I bet it was worth it, though.”

“Yes, it was actually,” David said in a different tone. “My skin looked amazing.”

“So when did you stay at an Amish farm?”

“I’d rather not go into that chapter of my life, actually? Just know that they have some amazing handmade products that I would love to sell in my store, but they have this completely unfounded grudge against me.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll charm them out of it.” 

“I can be charming.” 

“That’s what I said.”

“It’s just, I can’t tell if you’re joking,” David said, grumpily.

Patrick didn’t know either. He thought maybe he was flirting. He wanted to stay on the phone forever.

He said briskly, “I’ve got the paperwork in for the permit, but I think you’re going to need an inspection. I’m going to try to find out today and then I’ll call and let you know.”

After they hung up, Patrick got a text:

**David:** Make sure you actually call this time

Patrick stared at the text. He tried to think of a joke to say in response, but he couldn’t think of anything. This text felt too precious, even though he knew it was just David fretting about his permits. Finally he wrote:

**Patrick:** I will  
**Patrick:** Don’t worry you will be fine

**David:** ok

Then, a minute later:

**David:** Thanks 

*

The guy at the health department said David did need a health inspection. He also said that the health inspector was booked for three months. When Patrick pushed him, though, he hemmed and hawed and finally said that a call from the mayor might speed things along. 

So that’s how Patrick ended up in Roland and Jocelyn’s Schitt’s living room, drinking a cup of tea and eating a cookie that seemed to be mostly marshmallows. Patrick was trying to politely nibble on it, but it was very chewy.

“I just think having an empty storefront for too long is bad for the town,” Patrick said. “Especially when it’s the only store in town."

Roland leaned back in his chair and made a big show of looking skeptical. “This is Dave’s little pet project, isn’t it?”

“It’s ‘David’,” Patrick said. “Yes.”

“Maybe an extra three months to get ready would be good for him,” Roland said. “He doesn’t exactly have a great track record. The last store he worked at closed down.”

Jocelyn said, “Now Rolie, be nice. The Blouse Barn closing wasn’t his fault.”

David had worked at a place called the Blouse Barn?

Jocelyn said to Patrick, “David helped me when I was running for City Council. He picked out a very nice outfit for me.”

Roland said, “He helped me out there too. Remember those clothes I bought you, Joss?” He winked at her, and Jocelyn gave a little embarrassed titter, glancing at Patrick. 

Patrick tried to imagine David and Roland shopping together, and failed. 

Roland went on, ”The guy’s good at shopping, I’ll give him that. It’s about the only thing he’s good at.”

Patrick said, “His business idea is good,” at the same time Jocelyn said, “He’s not just good at shopping, Rolie! He can be sweet. Remember when he came to talk to that student at my school, the one who was having trouble, um—” she paused, “fitting in?”

“The gay one?” Roland said.

Suddenly Patrick was listening with every fiber of his being.

Jocelyn said to Patrick, “It was nice of David to help out.”

Roland said, “But Jocelyn, David’s not gay.” 

Patrick’s heart plummeted.

“He isn’t?” Jocelyn said. “I thought he was.”

“No, he’s pansexual. Johnny told me. Don’t make assumptions, Jocelyn. Jeez.” Roland shook his head at her. 

Pansexual. Patrick knew what that meant. “Pan” meant “all.” It meant David liked everybody. Well, obviously it didn’t mean he liked everybody. But it meant that David could potentially like anybody. 

Like Patrick. Patrick was an anybody.

He wanted to hug Roland. 

Patrick said, “David’s business will also help a lot of local farmers and craftspeople. It’s good for the community.” Then he popped the rest of the marshmallow cookie in his mouth, and immediately regretted it.

Roland said, “You seem really interested in helping David out, Pat. Such a sense of civic duty.” He was smiling in a knowing way. 

Patrick’s mouthful of marshmallows saved him from answering, but what the hell? Roland, too? Was he walking around with a sign saying _I’m gay and I love David Rose?_

_Yes, yes you are._

Jocelyn said, “Oh, Rolie, just give the guy a call. I need a place to go buy toilet paper without having to drive all the way to Elmdale.” She turned to Patrick. “Will David’s store have toilet paper?”

Patrick finally managed to swallow the marshmallows. “Um, maybe?” he said. He couldn’t imagine David getting excited about selling toilet paper, but he did say it would stock essentials.

Roland said, “Tell you what, Pat. I’ll see what I can do.”

Jocelyn said, “Let me get you another cookie, Patrick! You sure seem to like them. You just wolfed that one down!”

Patrick accepted another cookie. Oh, well. It was for a good cause.

*

Roland came through. Patrick called David back, but he got his voicemail. He left a message telling David that the inspection was scheduled for next Friday at 2:30 and to call with any questions.

Seconds later he got a text:

**David:** Cant pick up im at Amish farm  
**David:** Do you have news

**Patrick:** Stay away from the buttermilk  
**Patrick:** Health inspection scheduled next Fri 230

**David:** what will they inspect  
**David:** how do i know what to prepare  
**David:** what if i don’t pass

**Patrick:** it will be fine  
**Patrick:** the old general store sold food so they must have passed

**David: **maybe  
**David: **or bribery was involved  
**David: **or killing of firstborn children idk

Patrick could feel the worry radiating off of David’s texts. He thought for a minute, then texted:

**Patrick:** Do you want me to come by  
**Patrick:** show you what they will look for

**David: **ok  
**David:** I mean if you want

A few minutes later, David texted again.

**David:** they wouldn’t let me near the buttermilk

**Patrick:** probably for the best  
**Patrick:** too much temptation

They arranged for Patrick to come by the store later that day. 

Patrick felt a rising excitement. He was going to see David again. He told himself to calm down. He’d only met the guy twice, for a few minutes, a week ago. Maybe this crush was all in his head, something he had built up out of nothing. Maybe what he thought he felt was just a weird blip on that day, and he would see David again and feel nothing.

*

Patrick walked into the store and saw David with his back to him, dressed all in black, unpacking a box at the counter; and realized that the old phrase_ feeling weak at the knees_ was not just a figure of speech, but an actual real thing that happened.

So. Not a blip, apparently.

“Hi,” he said.

David looked up. “Hi,” he said.

There was a silence. Patrick felt full of all the things he’d been thinking of in the week since he’d seen David. The silence went on a beat too long; it felt awkward. 

He tried to sound brisk and practical. “So, shall I go over what the inspectors will look for?”

“Okay,” David said. He looked a little stressed out.

Patrick had called the health department guy again to get the rundown, and he went over it with David. He explained about proper refrigeration temperatures, adequate ventilation, and cleanliness. He pointed out a few things around the store. “And that’s really it,” he said. “I think you’ll be fine.”

David didn’t look reassured. “Refrigeration temperatures!” he said, like this was the last straw. He looked over at the cooler. “That,” he said, waving a hand at it, “is left over from the general store. It’s probably ancient. How do I know it’s at the right temperature?”

Patrick sensed that this wasn’t really about the refrigerator, but he said, “The health inspector will have their own thermometer, but the refrigerator probably has a thermometer inside it you could check.”

David was looking at him helplessly, so Patrick went to the cooler and opened it. He pointed. “See? The little dial in the back?”

David came up behind him.

Patrick said, “See the green section? That shows the safe temperature. And the red arrow is pointing right in the middle of it. So it’s right where it should be.”

David leaned in to look; he was suddenly close enough that Patrick could feel the warmth of his body, and smell him; something brushed against Patrick’s back—David’s hand? David’s chest?

Patrick felt a wave of intense heat, and then became uncomfortably aware that his cock was getting hard. Oh, Jesus Christ.

David only looked at the thermometer for a second before moving away and starting to pace. Patrick stayed standing with the cooler door open, staring into the empty fridge, grateful for the waves of cool air wafting out of it. Could Patrick crawl into this cooler until his erection went away or he died of embarrassment? Was that something he could do?

David said, “When I started this, I had no idea I was going to have to worry about stuff like this.”

Patrick took a deep breath, focusing on calming himself down. Then he closed the cooler, and turned toward David.

“I don’t think you do need to worry about it,” he said. “Think of it as just a—box you need to check off.”

“I hate it!” David said, gesturing wildly to the refrigerator. “I hate inspections and licenses and boxes to check off!” He put his hands up to his face, clapped them against his cheeks, and then went back to pacing.

Patrick searched for something to say that might help.

“How did it go at the Amish farm?” he said finally.

“Oh,” David said. “It went okay. They agreed to stock some things.”

“So you managed to be charming?”

David said, “I told you, I can be charming.”

“I just wish I could have seen it,” Patrick said. “I’d like to know what that looks like.”

David shot him a look. “Very funny.” He had stopped pacing. “They have these handmade wooden tools that are really well made, that I’m going to try first. And some of their lotions and hand creams.”

“See? You’ll be giving yourself another buttermilk facial before you know it.”

“You laugh, but buttermilk is an excellent exfoliator.”

David went back to the box he had been unpacking when Patrick came in. He seemed calmer.

_Now. Ask him out,_ said gay Patrick.

I can’t. He's stressing about his business right now.

_Ask him for coffee. then. That’s nice and casual._

Could he? Ask David if he wanted to grab a cup of coffee at the cafe? They could talk about the inspection some more. Or the food handlers’ permit. Or, there were a million other things that David probably didn’t know about, but would eventually have to deal with, like insurance, business taxes, how to get set up for HST collection …

_Whoa there, Patrick. Don’t use all your best lines at once._

Patrick watched David unpacking. He had a sudden paralyzing certainty that David must think he was the most boring person alive. 

“Well, I better get back to work,” he said. “Good luck with the inspection.”

_Coward._

*

The following week, David texted him that he passed the inspection, and Patrick texted him back “Congratulations” with some fireworks emojis.

**David:** Please know that I am not an emojis person  
**David:** However I will permit them in this case

Patrick sent him the puzzled face.

**David:** please stop

Patrick sent him the shrug emoji.

**David:** deleting that

Patrick was trying to decide if he should continue to push it or not, when David texted again:

**David:** i wanted to say thanks  
**David: **with the inspection i mean

Patrick smiled, reading those. He thought about sending the thumbs-up emoji, but then he wrote instead:

**Patrick:** You’re welcome  
**Patrick:** Happy to help

*

The next day, David’s business license came in the mail. 

Patrick looked at it. All of David’s paperwork was filed. After Patrick gave him this, he would be out of natural excuses to see him.

_Time to ask him on a date,_ said gay Patrick.

But what if he says no?

_But what if he says yes?_

Patrick didn’t have an argument for that. 

Okay, then. He was going to do it. People asked other people out, all the time, every day. He himself had done it quite a few times, but never when he felt like this.

Patrick bought a nice frame for the license so David could hang it up right away. He masturbated preemptively to prevent any repeat of the humiliating refrigerator boner. He washed his face and hands and combed his hair. He looked at himself in the mirror. He thought about changing clothes, but into what?

When he got to the store, he didn’t see David. An unfamiliar girl was standing in the middle of the store, who turned out to be David’s sister, Alexis. The one who dated Ted the veterinarian and the mayor’s son, Patrick’s brain told him inanely. She introduced herself as David’s “sister and life coach” and then immediately began flirting with Patrick. 

David came out from the back just as Alexis was tying a cat hair scarf around Patrick’s neck. He was allergic to cat hair. And flirting. He was sure Alexis was a nice person and he didn’t want to be rude, but—he was annoyed, and flustered. He hated that David was seeing this—she was being so—he didn’t want David to think he was—

_You don’t want him to think you’re straight._

Well … yeah. 

Patrick turned to David and started trying to talk to him, while Alexis rubbed his face with the scarf and talked about how soft it was. David seemed annoyed, and when he heard that Patrick had allergies, told him to take the scarf off, “like _now,_” and finally Patrick managed to get away from Alexis and take it off. He still felt flustered.

David picked up the license to look at it, and Alexis went over to him and said, “Isn’t that the sweetest thing, that he framed it?” as she shot a flirtatious glance at Patrick.

This isn’t how Patrick had pictured this at all, with Alexis here _prompting_ David to thank him; it was unbearable. When David agreed it was sweet and thanked him, Patrick just wanted the whole thing to go away. “Oh, they all come framed,” he lied.

“Oh, thank God,” David said, sounding relieved. “Because this frame is a little too corporate for my brand.”

Patrick knew it was ridiculous, truly ridiculous, to feel crushed. It was just a frame, and it made sense that someone who used _mood boards_ would have strong ideas about design. It was just, it was all too much suddenly. It felt like David was telling him,_ you’re too corporate for me,_ and Patrick thought about the last time they had talked, and how all the things Patrick knew about were things that David hated; how he’d gotten a boner like a 15 year old which he didn’t think David had noticed but what if he had and he thought Patrick was pathetic; and all at once he couldn’t believe he’d ever thought that David might say yes to a date with him.

_Pull yourself together, Patrick. _

Business, that’s why he was here. Focus.

He looked around the room, and noticed for the first time how many boxes there were. He wondered how much money David was spending on all this product, and if he knew how long his startup money had to last.

He asked David about it, and if he knew that he shouldn’t expect to make a profit for twelve months, and Alexis chimed in that the textbooks were currently saying eighteen.

David said, “Well, what are the textbooks saying about curating a selection of products from local vendors and selling them on consignment, in a one stop shop retail environment, that benefits both the vendor and the customer?”

He’s been _reading_ about this, Patrick thought, with a throb of warmth.

“I stand corrected,” he said, and smiled, and David smiled back. It was the first time David had smiled at him like that, such a warm, sweet smile, and it was amazing.

A minute ago, Patrick had been falling apart, and now he felt giddy again. He was dizzy from the emotional whiplash, 

He couldn’t bear it; he wanted more.

*

Patrick offered to help, and so he found himself moving boxes from the stockroom for David to unpack, while Alexis mostly trailed around getting in everyone’s way, sampling products and bickering with David. 

Finally David said to her, “Do you think you could stop opening up all the products and actually help for a hot second?"

“Sampling _is _helping, David.” Alexis held up the bottle of face cream she had opened. “I’m testing the products to make sure you have uniform branding. Brand unification is, like, crucial for your brand identity.”

“Ok, well, that is not the help that I need right now, thanks,” David said. “And I think_ I’m_ actually the one who knows what’s best for my brand.”

Alexis made a face at him.

Patrick decided to stay out of this war between siblings, and went back into the stockroom. Alexis followed him and leaned against the stack of boxes he was moving.“His only real job was at the Blouse Barn, but suddenly he’s an expert on business.”

“He’s learning,” Patrick said. 

Alexis rolled her eyes. “He thinks he is.”

“I’m surprised he doesn’t ask your dad for advice,” Patrick said. 

“Oh, Dad is the last person David would go to for help.”

“Why?”

“He just found out that Mom and Dad basically funded his entire career in New York, his art galleries. They paid for everything, bought all his art, paid off his patrons, everything.”

Patrick absorbed that information. “He just found that out?”

“Yeah, right before he started this whole thing. So now he’s, like, on a mission to prove he can succeed on his own, or whatever,” Alexis said. Her tone was mocking, but Patrick thought he detected a faint note of sisterly pride, and his heart warmed to her. He smiled at her.

David came in. “Great, now both of you are doing nothing. So helpful.”

*

The boxes were unpacked; Alexis was gone. Patrick was leaning against the counter, and David was slumped in the only chair. He looked worn out. Patrick thought about how hard David was working, and how little help he was getting from anyone. He thought about how David had just found out that the success he’d had in his previous life was based on his parents’ money; he thought about David’s mother voting against him on the town council for this lease.

Patrick broke the silence. “I thought you didn’t play cricket,” he said. 

David looked up, and Patrick indicated David’s sweatshirt, which was decorated with a baseball pattern.

David looked down. “This is cricket, but it’s also Givenchy,” he said. “Very different.”

“How is it different?”

“It’s Givenchy,” David said, like that should be obvious.

“Ah, of course.” Patrick said. He smiled at David, and David gave him back a little half smile.

“Listen,” Patrick said. “Can I ask you a few questions about your business plan?”

*

The next day Patrick hiked back to the top of Rattlesnake Point.

He thought about David’s business, what a good idea it was. The more he learned about it, the more he was sure it could succeed. He thought about his excitement when he first heard about it, how it was exactly the kind of business he would have loved to start himself. He still felt that way.

Patrick could help David with his business. He was pretty sure he was the only one who had the knowledge, the ability, the desire, and the commitment to help. That wasn’t arrogance, it was a fact.

What good would Patrick asking David out right now do for David? Nothing much, most likely. It could even be a negative, if David felt, after turning him down—which is what would probably happen—that it was too awkward to come to Patrick with business questions. Then David would really be alone.

Patrick had never been in love before—_crush,_ his brain corrected—but he knew one thing in the depths of his bones: love wasn’t about what you _felt,_ it was what you _did. _Love meant you did what was best for that person. Otherwise, what was it for?

Patrick could help David. He was going to help David. He wasn’t going to ask him out. He was going to go into business with him, if he could get David to agree.

For once, gay Patrick didn’t argue.

That made sense: he and gay Patrick were the same person. 

*

When Patrick got back to Ray’s, he did some calculations based on the information he had gotten from David, and then he got on the phone with Tracy, one of his friends from business school, who worked at the Ministry for Small Business. 

*

He drove over to the store. He had a plan. There were small business grants that David could apply for; Tracy had pointed Patrick to the ones that he would be most likely to get. Patrick would help David apply for these grants, so he could get more startup money, and be able to hire Patrick. It was a good plan.

Patrick pulled into a parking place behind the store. He killed the engine but didn’t get out of the car right away. He’d just had a thought. Should he tell David about his crush, in a full-disclosure kind of way? If David was going to decide whether to go into business with him, was it right to hold back that information?

He thought about what he could say, and everything seemed impossible: 

_I have feelings for you._

_I have a crush on you._

_I’ve never felt this way before about anyone._

_You helped me realize I’m probably gay, so thank you for that._

Yeah … no. He wasn’t saying any of that.

How about this:_ Just so you know, I was going to ask you out before, but I realized we’re better off without that complication if we’re going to be in business together._

That sounded reasonable. He rehearsed it several times in his head. 

*

He walked into the store. David seemed surprised to see him, and said, “My sister isn’t here.”

Patrick saw the opportunity to at least correct that impression. “I’m not here for your sister,” he said. 

David said, “Okay,” sounding kind of—taken aback, maybe, and Patrick realized the implications of what he said:_ I’m here for you. _

He went on hurriedly. He laid out his business plan for David. David accepted it. Patrick was elated.

Okay. Now for it. He said, “In the interest of us potentially working together, I did want to come clean about something.”

David said, “Okay?”

Patrick opened his mouth to say the line he’d rehearsed._ I was going to ask you out—_

The words stuck in his throat. He couldn’t say it. David was looking at him, and the silence drew out longer and longer, and suddenly the air was vibrating with tension. Patrick knew he looked nervous and shifty. His eyes darted around, and he saw the frame he had picked out. That would do. “I, um—I actually picked out that frame."

David said, “I see,” and he was smiling. “Thank you for making it clear that I will be making the creative decisions for the store. And I guess you can handle all the business stuff.”

“I’m very comfortable with that,” Patrick said.

He felt he and David understood each other. He decided that it was okay that he hadn’t told David about his feelings. He would make sure that they stayed his problem, not David’s.

Then David said, “You do know if the grant money doesn’t come through, then I won’t—”

“Oh, I’m going to get the money,” Patrick said, interrupting. He wanted David to know how determined he was to help, that David could count on him, that David wasn’t going to be doing this alone anymore. He'd aimed for reassuring, but it came out a bit—intense.

And then—he thought there was a flash of a look on David’s face, after he said it. 

Patrick liked it, that look. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he filed it away. He knew one thing—somehow, some way, he was going to find a way to put that look back on David’s face.


	3. White knight

**David:** I can’t get the credit card machine set up  
**David:** Maybe I’ll be cash only like a drug dealer

**Patrick:** I was going to do that  
**Patrick: **isn’t there anything else you could do

**David:** Look for more food vendors  
**David:** but I don’t want to

**Patrick:** get to it  
**Patrick:** or there's always drug dealing

Patrick was trying to help David as much as he could, but the grant money was going to take some time to come through, and in the meantime he was still working at Ray’s. David kept texting him with updates, questions, and complaints. Patrick’s heart leapt whenever his phone lit up with David’s name, which made it hard to focus on work, because David texted constantly.

_Why don’t you ask him to stop then?_ gay Patrick asked.

Shut up.

Patrick put down his phone. He went back to the paperwork he was filling out, which was a tax appeal for a property valuation.

Food vendors. He remembered Bev Wilcox and her apple orchard. He picked up the phone again.

*

It was the next day. Patrick was looking at a picture of a silver pitcher that David had just texted him. It was the fourth picture David had sent him this morning. The others were of a candle holder, a clock, and a wooden board that David said he could hang on the wall and put hooks on.

**Patrick:** nice pitcher

**David:** it’s a ewer  
**David:** it would be great for holding those horsehair paintbrushes

David was at an estate sale in Elm Valley. He had grudgingly agreed to let Patrick buy some new, inexpensive furniture for the store, as long as David could get a few accent pieces to “establish the aesthetic.”

**Patrick:** you’re supposed to be looking for furniture

**David: **oh i know

**Patrick:** you have a budget

**David:** yeah yeah

An hour later, David sent him a picture of a tall shelf, along with a table with a few drawers. They looked nice enough to Patrick, but the shelf was very dark wood and the table was lighter. He remembered his mother talking about matching wood shades when she was redecorating the dining room.

**Patrick: **They’re different shades

**David:** Your point being

**Patrick:** Isn’t that bad

**David:** no it is not bad  
**David:** I don’t even know where to start with you

**Patrick: **ok you’re the expert  
**Patrick:** how’s the budget

**David: **good  
**David:** just a little over

**Patrick:** David

**David: **it’s all done coming home now

But then, a half hour later, David sent another picture, of a cabinet made up of lots of small cabinets with very small doors. He also sent a series of exclamation points.

**Patrick:** i thought you were done

**David:** this is an APOTHECARY CABINET

**Patrick:** nice  
**Patrick:** it doesn’t look very practical for displaying merchandise

Immediately his phone started ringing. He answered it.

“It’s an _apothecary cabinet,_” David said, like that should settle it.

“I know, but don’t we need the furniture to display things?”

“Okay, I was _forced_ to lower my standards and buy those cheap tables—”

“They weren’t that cheap, actually.”

“—and now I find the _perfect_ piece that fits _perfectly_ with my aesthetic and we agreed that I could find accent pieces—”

“I get it, David, but you’ve already spent the amount that we agreed on this morning.”

“But you’re getting me more startup money.”

“I am, but we don’t actually have it yet.”

“But we will.”

Patrick liked how certain David sounded. He also liked how David said _we._

He said, “Okay, David, we’ll make it work.”

_You're such a pushover._

“Thank you,” David said. He sounded pleased. “It will be worth it, I promise.”

“So, how do you want to get all this back here? Do you know anyone with a truck?”

There was a long pause.

“Fuck.”

*

Roland said, “I don’t know, Dave, the last time I lent you my truck you didn’t come back for three days.”

David looked pained.

Roland held up the keys. David reached for them, but Roland pulled them away. “I think I’ll give them to Pat here. He seems like the responsible one.”

David looked annoyed, but he let Patrick take the keys. They got in the truck and Patrick started it up. Roland leaned in the window.

“How’d that health inspection thing work out?”

“It went fine,” Patrick said, at the same time David said, “What are you talking about?”

Roland said, “Oh, Pat here asked me to pull some strings to help you with your health inspection.”

David looked at Patrick and raised his eyebrows.

“It worked out,” Patrick said to Roland. “Thanks for making the call.” He put the truck in reverse and started backing up.

“Just remember Jocelyn is counting on that toilet paper!” Roland called after them.

They pulled out of the driveway.

“Mind telling me what that was about?” David said with an edge in his voice. “Did Roland bribe the health inspector or something?”

“No, it wasn’t like that.”

“Then what was it like?”

“I just asked him to call the guy to get you an earlier time slot. You passed the inspection all on your own, promise.”

“Okay,” David said. He looked slightly mollified. “And dare I ask what he meant with the toilet paper comment?”

Patrick figured this was not the time to tease. “That was a joke,” he said. “Jocelyn asked if you would stock toilet paper. I said maybe.”

“You said maybe? To toilet paper?” David said, with a rising intonation of horror.

“You said you’d be stocking essentials!”

“Toilet paper.” David clapped his hands on his cheeks. “Oh my God.”

“You know, it might not be the worst idea—”

“No,” David said. He threw up his hands. “Maybe. In the very back. We’ll talk about it later, okay?”

“Okay,” Patrick said humbly. 

David still looked agitated. “I just really do not appreciate being surprised by Roland. About anything. Why did you not tell me about this?”

Patrick knew why he hadn’t told David. At the time, he had thought maybe he was doing too much, and if David knew about it, he would think it was weird. But now, he realized, it wasn’t weird for him to do things for the business, because it was his business too. Their business. 

“I didn’t want to bother you,” he said. “You were so stressed about the inspection.”

“Well, next time you decide to bribe a politician on my behalf, remember to tell me about it,” David said. “We are supposed to business partners here.”

Patrick said, “You’re right, I should have told you. I’m sorry.”

Partners. They were partners. Patrick felt warmed by the thought; a little internal flame. 

*

They loaded the shelf and the table and the apothecary cabinet onto the truck. There was also the wooden board David had sent him the picture of, the one he’d said he would put hooks on. “They threw that in for hardly anything!” David said, when Patrick pointed it out.

In the car on the way back, Patrick’s phone rang in his pocket. He thought it might be Bev Wilcox calling back, so he took it out to look. It was her. He tried to hit the answer button, but he dropped the phone into his lap instead.

He fished for it, which made him swerve.

“Jesus, Patrick, what are you doing?” David said. He reached into Patrick’s lap to get the phone.

“Don’t!” Patrick said, sharply. Too sharply; but he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t have David groping around between his legs—it would be a disaster. 

David pulled his hand back immediately. “Sorry, I’m just—” Patrick said. He finally got hold of his phone. He shoved it at David, “Can you answer it?”

David took it and hit the answer button, then put it up to Patrick’s ear. “Hello?” Patrick said.

“Hi Patrick, this is Bev.”

“Bev, thanks for calling me back,” Patrick said warmly, trying to sound as normal as possible. He told her about the store and asked her if she’d been willing to stock her applesauce and apple butter there.

She seemed hesitant. She asked, “Who’s running this business?”

“It’s a man named David Rose. He’s—”

“The Roses? I’ve heard about them. Aren’t they supposed to be crazy?”

Her voice was loud, and Patrick glanced at David. He mouthed, _what the fuck?_ but otherwise didn’t move. He kept the phone to Patrick’s ear.

“I assure you that’s not the case,” Patrick said into the phone.

“Well, I guess I don’t know anything personally about them,” Bev said. “It’s just what I’ve heard.”

Patrick jumped on that. “You know better than to listen to gossip, right? And I’m going to be helping him out,” he said.

“Oh, why didn’t you say so?” Bev said warmly. “In that case I’m very interested.”

David kept holding the phone while Patrick made arrangements to go out to the orchard to talk further. When he wrapped up the call, David pushed the hangup button and gave the phone back to Patrick without saying a word. 

Patrick knew that David was probably upset about Bev only saying yes after hearing Patrick would be involved. He should talk to him about it. But he couldn’t stop remembering the split second of David’s hand groping between his legs. And then, the way David had held the phone to his ear had felt strangely intimate. He felt a little bit strung up; unsettled.

Patrick felt he had been doing pretty well keeping his feelings from interfering with their working relationship. That meant not letting things like this get to him. But he couldn’t bring himself to speak yet, and the silence stretched out.

When they got to the store, they unloaded the furniture and brought it in. David still wasn’t saying anything.

“Bev just hasn’t met you yet,” Patrick said finally.

David looked startled for a second, like he wasn’t sure what Patrick was referring to. Then he said, “Yeah, what about that?”

“Once she meets you, she’ll love working with you too.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I should turn the whole thing over to you,” David said moodily.

“David,” Patrick said.

David started pacing. “It’s not just her! Roland doesn’t trust me with his truck, I can’t set up the credit card machine. I can’t bribe politicians like a mafia don. All I do is spend too much money on furniture. You’re doing everything else.”

“I’m not doing everything. I’m not even doing half of everything. And can we please remember that I didn’t actually bribe anyone?”

“You’re doing everything important!” David said.

Patrick pursed his lips like he was thinking that over. “Well, maybe you’re right. Brewer Apothecary it is. Or maybe I’ll call it ‘The Brewery’.”

David winced.

Patrick went on, “I’ll sell toilet paper, of course. I’d put one roll in each of these little cabinets.” He pointed to the apothecary cabinet.

David said, “Okay, how can you even joke—”

“No, actually, I wouldn’t even buy this cabinet. I would get all my furniture from Furniture Warehouse. So many good deals there.”

“Furniture … Warehouse.”

“And I’ll sell applesauce and apple butter, but that’s it, because she’s the only vendor I found.”

David looked down. He started fiddling with the little door handles on the apothecary cabinet. “You’re trying to make me feel better, but—”

Patrick said, “David, I think I’m good at what I do. But, I can’t do what you do.”

“What do I do?” David said in a small voice.

“First of all, this is your idea. Your good idea. Do you know how much I’ve always wanted to start my own business?”

“Really?”

“Yes—since I graduated from business school. But I couldn’t think of a business to start. You did. And you’re finding all these great local products and talking to all these vendors and getting them excited to sell their stuff in your store. I made one contact. One.” 

David glanced at Patrick, then looked away. 

Patrick went on, “And I could never design this”—he gestured all around him— “immersive experience for the customer.” He was trying to make David smile.

David’s mouth twisted to the side. “I heard those were just buzzwords,” he said.

“Well, I heard that words still have actual meaning,” Patrick said. He tapped the apothecary cabinet. “So where are we putting this?”

David chose a space right in front, and they set up the table David had bought and put the apothecary cabinet on top. David was right. It looked perfect. 

Patrick said, “See? Aren’t you glad I talked you into buying this?”

That got him a real smile, one of David’s rare full smiles, the ones that made Patrick feel like he’d won the lottery.

*

A few days later, Patrick finally had a free afternoon to set up the credit card machine, as he’d promised. 

On the way to the store, he saw a guy he’d never seen before talking to Twyla outside the cafe. The guy was disheveled and wearing a bulky sweater, and had a camera slung over one shoulder. He was holding Twyla by the chin, and as Patrick walked by, he heard him say, “I’d love to photograph you spreadeagled on a dirty mattress.”

“Um, thanks?” Twyla said.

Patrick was going to walk on by, but Twyla called out to him, “Hi, Patrick!” Something about the way she said it made Patrick detour and approach them. He was guessing Twyla wanted an excuse to get away. 

He said, “Hello, Twyla. How are you?”

She said, “I’m just great. Well, I better get back to work,” and hightailed it back into the cafe.

The guy started talking to him instead of Twyla, like it didn’t matter who it was, as long as he had an audience.

“This little town is quite the find. I haven’t felt this inspired since Johnny Depp took me to French Polynesia.”

Patrick said, “People do get us confused with French Polynesia all the time.” 

The guy looked more closely at Patrick.

“Your skin is so translucent—it really catches the light. I’d love to do a series of you in black and white, naked and covered in blood.”

“Sounds painful.”

“Exactly,” the guy said, like Patrick got it. “Pain is the human experience. Art is pain. Life is pain. Love is pain.”

"Um, yeah." Was this guy for real?

The guy was looking Patrick up and down. “I really wish I was going to be in town a little longer."

Was this guy hitting on him? Patrick knew it wasn’t much of a compliment, because it looked like he’d been hitting on Twyla when he came up. But, he was the first guy to hit on him since he realized he was probably gay.

_Ew, no, _said gay Patrick.

Right there with you.

Patrick said, “Well, too bad. Gotta go.”

*

When he got to the store, the first thing he saw was a broken planter with dirt and a crushed houseplant strewn around it, that had obviously fallen. David was nowhere to be seen.

“David?” Patrick called.

David was usually so meticulous. It was very unlike him to make a mess and fail to clean it up. Also, David had planned to transplant ferns all morning. It looked like nothing had been done.

Patrick went to get the broom and dustpan from the stockroom. Suddenly David appeared in the doorway from the back room.

“Leave it,” David said. “I’ll get it.”

“I don’t mind,” Patrick said. He went over to the dirt and started sweeping.

“I'll do it, really,” David said. 

Patrick said, “I really don’t mind.”

“I said I would do it, so would you put away the fucking broom?”

Patrick straightened up to look at David, who was standing with his arms tightly folded.

“Does this have anything to do with the pretentious dickwad I just saw outside the cafe?”

“He’s here?” David said, and rushed over to the window. Patrick followed him, and looked too. The street was empty.

David turned away from the window. “His name is Sebastien Raine. He’s my ex, and he’s a monster,” he said. “He’s here to talk to my mother about doing some portraits for her.” He rubbed his hands over his face.

“I take it things didn’t … end well?”

“No, they didn’t,” David said. 

“What happened?” Patrick asked. “I mean, if you want to talk about it.”

“He asked about opening up the relationship, I said I didn’t want to, and it turned out he already had.”

“No wonder you dumped him,” Patrick said. 

Something shifted behind David’s expression. “Well, I didn’t, actually. I don’t … tend to do that.”

“You don’t tend to—”

“Break up with people. I kind of—did whatever he wanted. And then he dumped me anyway, so that was fun,” David said brightly.

Patrick absorbed all of that. From the look on David’s face, Patrick felt there was more to the story. A lot more. Not that what he had just said wasn’t bad enough.

_Love is pain._ That fucker.

Patrick had never wanted to punch anyone in his life, but he was suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to punch Sebastien Raine. He wanted to rush to David’s defense, take the guy apart, punch him in the face, tear him limb from limb. Somebody had been lucky enough to have David’s attention and affection, and he had squandered it and hurt him and cheated on him. How did that person exist?

He said, “Is there anything I can do?” He was surprised his voice sounded so normal.

“I don’t think so,” David said. “But thanks.” He sounded distracted. He turned to look out the window again, like Sebastien might appear. He said, abruptly, “I have to go. I have to see what he’s doing with my mother.” 

*

After David left, Patrick tried to set up the credit card machine, but he needed to get on the phone with the processor, and he couldn’t face doing it. He kept thinking of the look on David’s face when he said, _I kind of did whatever he wanted._ There had been such a depth of pain suggested by those few words, and Patrick was aching with the need to do something.

Rachel had sometimes accused him of having a white knight complex, and he knew it was probably true.

As a kid he had brought home birds with a broken wings or mice rescued from traps. He’d rescued a cat once that had been hit by a car. He’d run to his mother and they’d driven the cat to the vet. Patrick had lifted the cat as gently as he could, but the cat had scratched him badly. That’s when they discovered he was allergic to cats, actually—the scratches had swollen and itched for days afterward. But it was worth it, because the cat recovered and got adopted.

With people, though, Patrick had learned that rescuing them usually didn’t work the way you expected; there were always unintended consequences, and people resented it. He’d once tried to stage a surprise intervention and take one of his friends to rehab, and that person not only didn’t go to rehab, but had cut him out of her life. Once, Patrick had tried to intervene in a fight Rachel was having with her father, and it was the angriest he’d ever seen her. She’d said to let her fight her own battles, and he’d tried to remember that.

So that meant that right now, he probably should _not_ go and punch Sebastien Raine in the fucking face. 

This was David’s fight.

Patrick needed to do something active. He thought about going for a hike, but cell service wasn’t good up on the mountain and what if David needed him? So he went for a run, just around town, but he ran long and hard, until he was sore and gasping for breath. Then he went home, showered, and made himself some dinner. For once he would have welcomed the distraction of Ray’s chatter, but Ray was out playing poker. 

He ate dinner alone.

He washed up. He played his guitar. He watched TV. 

David didn’t call.

Patrick went to bed. He dreamed of needing to run but being rooted in place, of needing to fight but his arms being too heavy to move; he dreamed of David being in danger, somewhere far away, and the harder he tried to get there, the further away he got. 

When he woke up, he was exhausted.

*

Patrick didn’t have any appointments with clients until afternoon, so he decided to go to the store and finally hook up the credit card machine. On the way, he went into the cafe to get a cup of tea, and saw Sebastien standing at the counter. 

It was a jolt. Patrick been thinking about Sebastien so much it almost felt like his brain had conjured him up. He probably should have just turned around and walked out again, but he didn’t. He walked up and stood right next to him at the counter.

Sebastien looked over and saw him. “Hi,” he said.

Patrick didn’t answer. He was vibrating with tension. _This is the guy. This is the guy that hurt David._

_David's fight,_ he reminded himself.

“I wish I’d called_ you_ last night,” Sebastien said. 

“I don’t,” Patrick said.

Twyla approached him. “Tea, please,” he said to her.

She said, “Did you want to get David’s coffee also?”

“Not today,” Patrick said. It was probably still too early.

He felt Sebastien looking at him.

Sebastien said, “So, you’re David’s boyfriend. That figures.”

Patrick thought about letting him think that; he suddenly fiercely wanted Sebastien to think David was his boyfriend. _That’s right,_ he wanted to say. _And I’m treating him better than you ever did or could._

“No,” he said. “He’s my friend.”

“Your_ friend,_ right.” Sebastien said. 

Patrick turned to look at him fully. Sebastien looked different somehow; he had lost most of his superior air from yesterday.

Sebastien said suddenly, “You know, it is _so sad_ when people can’t leave the past behind. This little stunt of his shows how short-sighted he is, as a person. I’m not angry for myself,” he said, placing a hand on his heart, “but I am angry for the sake of the art that was lost to the world.”

Clearly something had happened last night.

“Yes, it’s so sad when your own actions come back to haunt you,” Patrick said. 

Sebastien said, “David’s willingness to give himself sexually was always one of his best qualities. I’m so sorry to see him using that gift to exact petty personal revenge.”

Then, looking at Patrick’s face, Sebastien’s expression changed. He smirked. “Oh, he didn’t tell you about last night?”

He’s lying, Patrick thought. Why should he believe anything Sebastien said? David had been so hurt yesterday. Why would he … what would make him want to …

Patrick couldn’t think about that now; he couldn’t give Sebastien the satisfaction. He straightened up and said casually, “Looks like maybe you got fucked twice over then.”

That was a shot in the dark, based on Sebastien’s comments about petty revenge, but it seemed to hit home. Sebastien’s face darkened.

He said, biting the words out, “David Rose is a hot mess. You’ll find that out. He’ll fuck anything that moves. So whatever you think that’s worth.”

“A lot, actually,” Patrick said.

*

Patrick walked into the store, and David was there already. He was wearing blue rubber gloves and setting up plants by the front window, arranging them. The broken pot and the dirt had been swept away.

“You’re here early,” Patrick said.

“I needed to do the plants.”

“You doing okay?”

“Yes, I am. I’m absolutely okay.” David said, with emphasis.

“Bad exes taken care of?”

“Oh, yes,” David said. He seemed grimly satisfied. He picked up a trowel and started tamping down the dirt in the pots.

_It’s not your business,_ Patrick reminded himself. Whatever had happened, David seemed to have gotten the better of it. Maybe Patrick should leave it alone. But David _was_ his business—at least as a friend and business partner, right?

“I actually ran into Sebastien, just now,” Patrick said.

“Oh,” David said. He looked up, trowel suspended in the air. He looked like he didn’t like that. At all. “Did he say anything about me?”

“He did.”

“What did he say?” David said.

“He said you had obviously outgrown him and he was glad you were in a better place now.”

David put down the trowel. He stripped off his rubber gloves. He said, “That is one hundred percent _not_ what he said.”

“But it’s true, isn’t it?”

David thought that over. Then he said, “Yeah. It is.”


	4. Get a grip

It had all been so clear up on Rattlesnake Point. 

He was not going to ask David out. He was going to help him with his business. He was going to set his feelings aside.

Simple.

One thing he hadn’t accounted for, though, is that being around David every day made him horny, like, all the time. He had to jerk off in the shower in the morning just to be able to have a halfway normal conversation when he got to the store, and then he had to do it again when he got home after being around David all day.

Once, on a particularly warm day, when they were moving a lot of boxes, David had taken off his sweater and worked for awhile in just a t-shirt and jeans. And that’s when his internal gay Patrick voice just went into overdrive—

_Look at his ARMS do you see those biceps look look do you see his CHEST look at the way the t-shirt clings to his pecs and look at his waist and his hips and look when he bends down oh my god his ass is so fucking beautiful and those LEGS those long long legs do you see them are you looking are you seeing this right now—_

Yes, I can see. Stop. Stop.

But he couldn’t stop. It was like for thirty years his body had been asleep, and now that it had woken up, it was screaming and jumping up and down.

He remembered how he used to feel a bit smug, watching his friends make fools of themselves over sex. He mentally apologized to them in retrospect, for all the times he had thought, or sometimes said,_ what were you thinking?_

He saw now: they weren’t thinking, because they couldn’t think, because all the blood in their bodies was rushing between their legs, and there was nothing left for their brains.

*

Patrick tried to recapture that feeling of clarity that he had felt up on the mountain with a pro and con list. The results were certainly clear: the cons list was so long that it had_ branches;_ cons if Patrick asked David out and he said no, a different branch for if he said yes and the date didn’t go well, and third branch for if it went well enough to lead to future dates but they (inevitably) broke up.

The pros list was short:_ I want to_. After a minute he added a second one: _being brave is good._ Then a third: _maybe it will work out._

Compared to the branching tree on the other side, those three lonely pros made a pathetically short list. So. Case closed, then. But somehow his brain was not as receptive to logic as it usually was. He was used to making a decision and not second guessing it, just moving forward. But he kept stubbornly wanting to ask David out, even as he tried to argue himself out of it:

It’s not a good idea. 

_But I want to. _

It’s not a good idea. 

_I still want to._

Over and over again.

*

He kept doing things, things that did not fit with the calm, cool, collected person he thought himself to be. Stupid things.

For instance: one day, after Patrick had run home to Ray’s during lunch, he got caught in a sudden downpour on the way back. He wasn’t wearing a coat, and he got soaked.

When he walked into the store, David came over to him. “Oh my God. That rain came out of nowhere.” He was kind of hovering, his hands plucking the air around Patrick like he wanted to help. “Why don’t you—”

_Why don’t you get out of those wet clothes?_ suddenly popped into Patrick’s head. Clearly, he’d been listening to David’s detailed descriptions of rom com plots too long.

_Why not?_ He had a tank top on underneath; it’s not like he would be walking around shirtless. Quickly, before he lost his nerve, he started unbuttoning his shirt.

Rachel used to tell him he had nice arms.

“What are you doing?” David asked

“I’m going to let this dry,” Patrick said, ultra-casually. He couldn’t believe he was doing this. He pulled his shirt out from where it was tucked into his jeans, unbuttoned it the rest of the way. He shrugged out of it, trying to be very matter-of-fact, no big deal. He turned to drape it over the edge of the register counter.

He was afraid to even look at David. 

Feeling very foolish—was he really doing this, there was no way David was going to give a shit about his arms—he started breaking down the boxes that they had unpacked that morning. 

In his peripheral vision, he thought he sensed that David hadn’t moved. Was he looking at him? _Please let him be looking at me._

He kept working, bending and stooping as he worked, breaking down the boxes. Finally, he couldn’t stand the suspense anymore, and he glanced David’s way, just briefly, as casually as he could. 

David _was_ looking at him.

At Patrick’s glance, though, he wheeled around and walked over to the other side of the store. He stood with his back to Patrick and starting rearranging some candles that were on the shelves over there.

Patrick kept working on the boxes. He was tingling all over.

When he was done, he moved to one of the unpacked boxes and opened it. 

“What’s this?” he said.

David glanced over, then went back to his candles. “That’s body milk,” he said.

“Body milk? Like to drink?”

Then David did turn around. “No, not to _drink,_” he said irritably. “It’s liquid moisturizer.”

Hardly believing in his own nerve, Patrick walked over and stood next to David. He leaned in close to hold the bottle in front of him. He pointed at the label. “But see how prominent the word ‘milk’ is? I think people will be confused.”

He was so close, not touching David but so so close to him. He felt dizzy. Now he could feel his own body reacting—maybe this wasn’t the best idea after all. But he didn’t move.

David stepped away. He said, “Anyone with a fiber of common sense will know it’s not actually milk! Excuse me, I’m going to lunch now.” He turned abruptly and went out of the store.

Patrick watched as David walked out the front door. 

Did that just happen? Had he really just tried to … turn someone on by walking around in a damp tank top?

And more importantly, did it just work?

He put his shirt back on before David got back, but he was very cheerful all afternoon. 

That lasted until he got home, when he told himself to get a grip. It had _not_ worked, obviously. It was just his wishful thinking. There was no way someone as experienced as David was going to get hot and bothered watching him, Patrick Brewer, take off his shirt.

His face burned, thinking of it. He only hoped he hadn’t been too obvious. He renewed his determination to just_ stop. _

*

But then, only a few days later, he had another broken brain moment. There was a lice outbreak at the motel, and he impulsively invited David to stay at his place.

His place. Like he had a place. He had a _room._

__

__

_ Come stay at my place. Oops, there’s only one bed. _

Jesus Christ. He really was trying to live in a rom com.

Just as well David said he was already staying with Stevie.

That was one bright spot of that day: he had met Stevie, David’s best friend. David talked about her a lot, and Ray had said she and David used to be an item. Patrick had felt a tiny bit jealous, thinking about that, but that was one emotion he had managed to talk himself out of, thank God.

Stevie had liked him. She had said to him straight out:_ I like you._ She had jumped in when he started teasing David about the body milk and they had ganged up on him together.

He liked Stevie.

*

There was a lot of work to do, and that was a good distraction. David usually did the vendor visits alone while Patrick worked back at the store, but Patrick and David did go together to meet Bev Wilcox at the apple orchard. Bev liked David as much as Patrick thought she would, and she gushed over Patrick a little bit. She had her niece, Mia, go over the details of the arrangement with them. Mia was about twenty-five, small and cute with glasses and dark hair cut into a pixie cut. After the meeting, Bev seemed to be angling for the three of them to go out to lunch together, but Mia said firmly that she was too busy. 

“Then how about some apple cake?” Bev said. 

Patrick was going to refuse—Mia, though friendly and polite, seemed ready for them to be gone—but then he saw how David’s whole demeanor changed at the mention of apple cake. _Longing _was the only word for the look on his face.

If David wanted apple cake, Mia would have to deal. “Sure, we’d love it,” Patrick said, shooting an apologetic smile at Mia. She shrugged philosophically.

Bev started making coffee. She encouraged Patrick to sit next to Mia on the couch, which Patrick didn’t mind because it was so obvious Mia wasn’t into him.

Bev brought out the apple cake on plates for each of them, and passed them around. Patrick could hardly focus on the small talk, because watching David eat apple cake was … distracting. He lined the plate up precisely in front of him, arranging his coffee cup just so. Then he picked up his fork and frowned a little at it—apparently it was not up to his standards. Then he took the first bite, taking time to savor it, before moving onto the next bite and savoring that too. At one point, his eyes actually rolled back in his head, which was—kind of hot, honestly. Patrick had never seen anyone so thoroughly enjoy eating anything.

Baked goods. Patrick filed away that bit of information.

*

The next day, Patrick drove to Elmdale in the morning to get a new charger for his laptop.

On the way back, he saw a little roadside cafe that promised “homemade donuts!” He pulled in and spent way too long dithering over the display case. Finally he picked out an apple fritter, a chocolate glazed donut, and a cream filled donut with chocolate frosting. He figured that covered most of the bases. He swung by the cafe to get David’s coffee and his tea.

When he walked into the store, David was engrossed in Rose Apothecary-branded labels and signs that were spread out on the counter. They must have arrived from the printer. There were labels of all sizes and shapes, bags for holding coffee and tea, tags that could be attached to sweaters, blankets, and scarves. There was an open/closed sign. There were decals to put in the windows.

Patrick came over to look. “The labels arrived? That’s exciting,” he said. 

“Does this look ecru to you?” David said. “I specifically said ecru, and I’m worried this looks more taupe.”

“It definitely looks ecru.”

David shook his head, like Patrick’s opinion wasn’t reassuring. Then he looked up, and Patrick handed him his coffee and the little bag of donuts. Patrick went to put down his laptop on the table in the front, the one with the apothecary cabinet, which he had set up as a little workspace. He took out his new charger.

“Um, what’s this?” David said.

Patrick turned. David was just standing there, holding the bag and coffee. “Coffee and donuts,” he said. “Courtesy of Elmdale, so I hope they’re better than the cafe.” 

David looked stunned. “You brought me donuts?”

“Why, don’t you like them?”

“I like them,” was all David said. He still seemed to be having trouble taking it in. Patrick didn’t believe it was really such a rare occurrence for someone to bring David coffee and donuts, but he felt pleased that they had gone over well.

“Good, then,” Patrick said. 

He turned back to his desk and plugged the new charger into the wall, and opened up his laptop. He’d had an idea for how to handle pricing, and now that they had their labels, he’d better get to it. 

Patrick heard the bag crinkle and looked over. David was taking out the cream filled one first, and he made another mental note.

Later, David was putting labels and tags on products while Patrick worked on his laptop. David kept up a running commentary on the labels; he was still fretting that the color wasn’t quite what he had envisioned. He also wondered what type of string he should use to attach the cardboard tags—burlap, he decided finally—and whether the window decals were too cheesy.

Patrick was only half listening. He said absently, “They’re not cheesy.” David had worried about that before, that putting signs that said _one of a kind_ and _locally sourced_ on the windows was too “obvious.” Patrick told him that sometimes being obvious was a good thing, if it let people know what you were selling.

Patrick was deep into the spreadsheet he was making. He’d had the idea for it on the drive from Elmdale. He’d been doing a lot of research on typical markups of different kinds of products—lower markups on food, higher markups on luxury products, the premium for something certified organic, etc.—to help them determine prices, and he was trying to sort the products into categories and put in the appropriate formulas. He had some products stacked around him, to ask David more about.

David moved on to hinting broadly that Patrick should help him with the labels, talking about how long it was taking when he had to do it _by himself._ Patrick ignored the hints, mostly because he was so absorbed in what he was doing.

Finally, David said, “What are you working on that’s so interesting?” 

Patrick looked up. David was kind of pouting. It was adorable.

David thought spreadsheets were boring, he knew, but sometimes, when he was listening to Patrick talk about the numbers side of the business, he got a slightly awed expression, like Patrick was a—a wizard or something. Patrick liked that look. So he launched into his explanation, winding up with, “Whenever we get a new product, we just put it in the spreadsheet in the appropriate category and it will calculate the price.” Patrick waited for David to look impressed, but he just made a dismissive motion with his hand.

“Oh, is that all,” he said. “Well, it’s a waste of time.”

“A waste of time, really,” Patrick said, slightly nettled, but kind of intrigued to hear where David was going with this.

David shrugged, looking superior. “It’s just, I already have my own method.”

Now Patrick couldn’t wait to hear this. “What’s your method?”

“I just think of how much I would be willing to pay and then I—”

“What?”

“Adjust it.”

Patrick nodded. “So basically you pull a number out of your—”

David gave him a look.

“—brain,” Patrick finished.

Now David was looking _very_ superior. “Oh, no, it’s totally scientific.”

“How’s that?”

“If it’s skin care I adjust it down because I know that I would pay more for it, because most people are idiots who don’t take care of their skin, and if it’s something like this sweater, I adjust it up because I’ve seen people wear sweaters like this even when they definitely should not.”

“I see. So it’s based on your low opinion of people’s intelligence and taste, compared to yours.”

“That’s correct,” David said. 

Patrick held up a bottle of body milk. “So this would be …?

“Eighteen dollars,” David said promptly.

Patrick looked at his spreadsheet. Eighteen dollars. Well, shit.

David saw Patrick’s face, and looked smug. “So, you see, you’ve been wasting your time. You should help me with the labels instead.”

“Hmm,” Patrick said. “How about the toilet plungers?” He picked one up from the floor and held it up.

David looked pained. “I thought we agreed you were going to keep those out of my sight.”

“But how much would you charge for it?”

“Twenty-five … cents?” At Patrick’s snort, David said, “I mean … dollars?”

Patrick laughed. 

“Okay, so there are some things I’ve never even thought about buying, okay?” David said defensively.

“So you admit the spreadsheet is good for _some _things.”

“I still think you should help me with the labels,” David said.

“I’m not helping you with the labels, David,” Patrick said. “Oh, there’s a couple of products here I wanted to ask you about.” He held up a flat, round metal container that was unlabeled. 

“Oh, that’s cuticle cream. Ten dollars.”

“Specialty beauty products, category five,” Patrick said. He entered it on the spreadsheet, ran it through the formula. “I get 9.50.”

“Oh, fine.” David rolled his eyes.

Patrick picked up another unlabeled bottle. It was tiny. “How about this?” He flipped open the top and sniffed it, then squeezed a little out on his fingertip. It was clear. “Aloe vera? After sun lotion?” he guessed.

David had gone quiet. Patrick looked up at him.

“Um, twenty dollars.” David said, looking strained.

“But what is it?” Patrick said, then went on without waiting for answer, “Twenty dollars? For this tiny bottle? I don’t need a number you’ve pulled out of your—”

With the word _ass_ on the tip of his tongue, combined with David’s expression, suddenly Patrick knew. This was lube. He looked down at the bottle, then back at David.

David was suddenly very interested in his labels.

“Okay,” Patrick said casually. “I might need to make a new category.” He opened up his web browser, started tapping keys. He was determined that David not see him look embarrassed.

“Personal lubricant,” he said aloud. “Oh, you’re right, David, the markup on it is _very_ good.” He opened up a new column in his spreadsheet, entered a formula. He said, “Oh, I only get 18.50. Unless it’s organic? Do you know?”

David sounded strangled. “It’s organic.”

“Well then,” Patrick said. He tapped a few more keys. “Twenty-two dollars.” He clucked his tongue. “It’s close, but your method would have cost us, David. I’m just curious,” he said, his eyes on his laptop screen, “how your method worked in this case. Is this something you would say you’re willing to pay more for than the average person?”

He looked up, giving David the blandest look he could. David didn’t answer. He actually looked a little rattled, and Patrick smiled into his computer screen.

*

That night, Ray was out: poker night.

Patrick was in his room, contemplating the little bottle. He'd taken it on impulse today. If Alexis could take home free samples, he figured, so could he. 

Patrick was a simple man. For masturbation purposes he used supermarket hand lotion or his own spit. It always seemed to work just fine, so he never saw a reason for anything fancier.

He knew why he’d taken this, though. He’d been doing some research. There was something he’d been thinking about trying, and the things he’d been reading said not to use hand lotion for it. 

Patrick went into the bathroom, got the fingernail clipper out of the medicine cabinet and stood over the trash can to trim his already short nails. He put the clipper away. As he washed his hands, he looked up and saw his own face in the mirror, looking serious. He imagined a sign flashing over his head: _area man to attempt anal fingering for the first time. _

He turned away.

Back in his room, he spread a towel on top of his bed. He put the small bottle of lube on the bed next to the towel. 

He knew, of course (research), that there was nothing uniquely gay about anal sex or anything anal; he knew that it wasn’t a requirement to being gay, and that some gay men didn’t like it at all, or liked being the giver but not the receiver. Men basically had the same equipment, gay or straight, so what he was about to do he could have done with anyone, or by himself, at any time. So this was really more about him finally being curious about sex and about his body and what it could feel, rather than about him discovering he was gay.

_Stop thinking like you’re about to write a book report and just get to it. _

Okay, okay.

He took off all of his clothes and lay down on his back on the towel. He knew he was alone in the house, but he felt nervous and exposed. He wished he had a lock on his door.

He didn’t touch himself yet, just lay there, thinking. Even with all the masturbating he’d been doing lately, which was obviously because of David, he had been trying not to think about David too much while he was actually doing it. If he was trying not to act on his feelings, he had reasoned, he should actively try to avoid feeding his crush. So, sometimes he would watch porn on his laptop; he had always thought he wasn’t that into porn, but it turned out gay porn was a little more interesting to him than straight porn. 

Okay, a lot more interesting. 

Or, if porn wasn’t feasible, like in the shower, he tried to picture a faceless, generic man. The “faceless” man he pictured in his head did kind of end up being tall with broad shoulders and long legs and dark hair and dramatic eyebrows and a sweet smile.

But maybe he just had a type. He was allowed to have a type, wasn’t he?

Right now, though, he felt a little apprehensive about what he was about to do, and he decided to let himself think about David, specifically David.

He brought his hands up to his chest. He imagined they were David’s hands. He touched his nipples, pinching them and rolling them between his fingers. He ran his hands down his sides, his hips, the outsides of his thighs, and then spread his legs a little and ran them up the insides of his thighs, up to his balls and then his cock. He wrapped his fingers around his cock and squeezed, running his thumb over the head.

He picked up the bottle of lube and squeezed a dollop of it on his hand, then continued stroking his cock, spreading the lube around. It did feel nicer than hand lotion; it was more slick, his hand was gliding more easily; it felt good. He thought of the look on David’s face when Patrick had asked him what it was, at the store. He imagined David coming over and leaning over him and whispering in his ear,_ let me show you._ He imagined David leading him to the back, but there wasn’t any furniture back there, only boxes, so where would they—it doesn’t matter, imagine there is a bed back there, this is a fantasy, Jesus, Patrick.

Okay, so they’re in a bed, and he’s kissing David, and touching him, and their clothes are gone, this is fantasy so that’s easy, and he has his hand on David’s cock, and it’s nice and slick like this; he’s stroking him, and David likes it, he likes how Patrick touches him, and then David is touching Patrick’s cock too, stroking it, and then he moves his hand back to Patrick’s ass—

Patrick remembered the diagrams he had looked at. He rolled on his side and brought one leg up to his chest. He thought how ridiculous he must look, but then he shoved that thought out of his mind. He got more lube on his hand and brought it back around his ass and pressed on the hole between his cheeks; he felt his body tense up, but he consciously relaxed, and his finger slipped inside. He felt full and weird, not really what he had imagined, but he wasn’t going to give up that easily; he had to give this a fair shot. He stayed still for a minute, not moving; he imagined David’s body pressed against him from behind, and that this was his cock rubbing against him, and David was saying, _do you want me to fuck you?_

_Yes._

Patrick began moving his finger in and out, and it started to feel good, a pressure building that he started to feel in the base of his cock, but Patrick didn’t want to touch his cock again quite yet, he was still figuring this out. He put his finger in further, and crooked it a little, like the website had said, and—

_Oh. Jesus. Fuck._

Patrick shuddered. A part of him, far away, said smugly, _see? Research pays off_—but mostly he was drowning in sensation. He moved his finger all the way out, then back in again and pressed on that spot again. He thought he might try a second finger now and slipped it in, and the feeling of fullness intensified, and now he knew where that magic spot was, so he crooked both fingers again to press on it, then started moving them in and out, hitting against that spot each time. Then he pictured David pressed against him, his cock inside him, moving in and out, and his whole body shuddered, and he couldn’t wait anymore, his cock was aching; he had to come. He grabbed his cock with his other hand and started stroking it, at the same time pressing those two fingers in from behind; he imagined David inside him, making him feel this way; then he imagined himself inside David, he was making David feel this way; it was both, and it was so beautiful; he was filled with longing, he wanted that, he wanted that so much. Then he was coming, in waves of intensity that seemed to go on and on.

He came back to himself slowly. He gently pulled his fingers out of himself, wiped them on the towel. He felt boneless.

There wasn’t much doubt that he was gay, he supposed. He didn’t know what he was waiting for, to say for sure. The evidence was overwhelming. Even putting aside his crush on David, over the last few weeks he’d discovered that he liked watching gay porn, he liked to think about men when he masturbated, he liked the idea of kissing a man, touching a man, being touched by a man, penetrating a man, being penetrated by a man—all of it.

So what was the holdup? Why didn’t he just say it?_ I’m gay._

It was just—he’d never actually _done_ any of it. It was all in his head. What if he tried it, and he felt like he did with Rachel? What if it felt awkward, or boring, or just, you know, nice—at best.

The final test was for him to kiss a guy, and like it. Then he would know.

To kiss David. He didn’t want to kiss just any guy. He wanted David.

_But you decided not to act on your feelings, remember?_

Right.

He felt helpless, trapped in that same back and forth he’d been stuck in for weeks:

_It’s not a good idea. _

_But I want to._

He couldn’t keep this up. Something had to give.

*

He decided he needed some space, to get some perspective. If he wasn’t with David, he was working on David’s business, or he was at home or up at Rattlesnake Point thinking about David.

He texted David the next day:

**Patrick:** need a day off  
**Patrick: **call if there’s an emergency

**David:** everything ok?

**Patrick: **yes  
**Patrick: **mental health day

He asked Ray about a local baseball league. There were just two teams, which made sense for such a small town. The season was already well underway, but he got on the sub list for the Cafe Tropical team. 

He was restless; he needed to do something physical. Should he go for a hike? No, he needed to be around people. He decided to join a gym. The closest one was at a community center closer to Elmdale. While he was there, he met a guy named Joel, who it turned out played on the Cafe Tropical team. He assured Patrick there would be plenty of opportunities to play even as a sub, and, when he found out he was new in town, invited him to a party he and his girlfriend were having that night.

Patrick thought of what he had just been thinking about, that he was so consumed by the store and by David that he had lost perspective. Maybe getting out and meeting new people would be a good idea.

“I’d like to,” he said. “Thanks.”

*

When he got to the party, Joel introduced him around. Patrick had a beer, and then another, and he started to have a good time. It had been a long time since he had been to a party where he knew no one—since college, probably. He remembered he was good at this. 

He saw Mia Wilcox across the room, and he made his way over to her. They made small talk for a few minutes, then she said, “I’m glad I saw you again, actually. I’d like to apologize for my aunt’s matchmaking. She always tries to push me toward any single guy she meets.”

Patrick smiled and said, “That must be annoying.”

Mia shrugged. “There aren’t that many guys around here, so it’s mostly fine. I just feel bad because she’s wasting her time.”

Patrick looked at her inquiringly. 

“I’m gay,” she said, and she had this little goofy, self-conscious smile, and Patrick felt a throb of recognition, deep in his bones. He felt, he_ knew,_ that this was new to her; she was still getting used to saying that out loud.

He said, cautiously, “Your aunt doesn’t know?”

“Not yet,” she said. “My friends do, but, I don’t know—it will probably be fine, but …” she trailed off. 

“I totally understand,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay,” she said. She was smiling.

Just then, the doorbell rang, and Joel went to answer it. Patrick turned and saw Stevie and David coming in. Patrick suddenly felt like it had been weeks since he had seen David, instead of twenty four hours. He could feel his whole body lighting up.

_Get a grip, Patrick._

David didn’t look happy. His expression was sour. He was saying to Stevie, “We will stay for one hour, one, then we are leaving.”

“One hour, got it,” Stevie said. 

Patrick wanted to go over to him immediately, but he remembered his resolution to get some space from David and stayed where he was. But then Mia called out to him, “David, hi!” and David turned and saw them. He lifted a hand but then turned away, and Patrick felt a stab of disappointment.

Stevie made her way over to them, though. She greeted Mia, who she seemed to know, and then said to Patrick, “I’m going to have to ask you to talk to David.”

“Why?”

She waved a hand, like she couldn’t even get into it. “You’ll see,” she said. 

Patrick said, “Excuse me,” to Mia and went over to David, who was still standing by the door where Stevie had left him. David said, “Hi,” kind of flatly.

“How do you know Joel?” Patrick asked finally.

“I _don’t_ know Joel. Stevie knows Joel, and she dragged me along. How do _you_ know Joel?” It sounded accusatory. 

“I met him at the gym today,” Patrick said.

“Oh, I see. You went to the _gym_. On your sick day.”

“It was a mental health day,” Patrick said. He was starting to see where this was going.

“I see. And is this,” David said, motioning around to the party, “part of your mental health day too?”

Patrick said, “Are you accusing me of not working hard enough at the store?”

David made a face. Patrick folded his arms and raised his eyebrows.

“Here you go,” said Stevie, suddenly appearing. She handed David a glass of wine. “I got you red wine. I know how much you like it.”

Patrick couldn’t understand why that made David give her such a dirty look, but she just went away smirking. 

David took a drink of his wine. He said into the glass, “I was an asshole.”

Patrick said, “When?”

David said, “Yesterday. You got me donuts, then I was an asshole.”

Patrick thought back. He shook his head. He couldn’t think of anything.

“About your _spreadsheet,_” David said. “I was an asshole about your spreadsheet.”

“Oh, that,” Patrick said. “Were you being more of an asshole than usual? I guess I’m so used to it, I didn’t notice.”

David twisted his mouth into a grimace. Then he said, “I think it will be … helpful. You have been … very … helpful. To me."

Patrick couldn’t help smiling a little. David looked like every word of that had caused him physical pain. “I appreciate that,” he said. Then a thought occurred to him. “David, did you think I didn’t come in today because I was mad at you?”

David was looking at the floor. “You brought me donuts.”

Patrick didn’t see what the donuts had to do with anything, but he said, “I really just needed a day off. Our launch is two weeks away, and we’ve both been working really hard. I think you could use a mental health day too, honestly.” 

David shook his head. “I’m fine,” he said. He looked a lot happier, so Patrick decided not to push it right then, but he made another mental note.

*

Stevie came back. She was holding a lit joint.

“Where did you get that?” David said.

“Why did you think I wanted to come to this party?” Stevie said. “Want any?”

David took it and took a hit, then passed it back to Stevie. She offered it to Patrick.

“Oh, no thanks,” he said. “It makes me really dopey.”

“That’s kind of the point, Patrick. It’s called dope,” Stevie said.

Patrick hesitated.

“Don’t pressure him, Stevie,” David said, waving his hands. “No peer pressure here. This is is a safe space.”

“You know what?” Patrick said impulsively. “Maybe I will.”

He took the joint. He inhaled, holding in the smoke, and passed the joint back to Stevie. David was looking at him with his eyebrows raised.

“Mr. Brewer, aren’t you full of surprises,” David said.

Patrick had already had three beers. Smoking weed on top of that was probably not a good idea.

Thirty seconds later, he decided it was an excellent idea. He took another hit when Stevie offered it. It had been a long time since he had smoked pot.

The next couple of hours were a little patchy, memory-wise.

*

Patrick was on the couch, next to Stevie. It was one of those sink-into-it couches, or maybe it just felt that way. David was across the room, getting another drink. Seeing David here, with all these ordinary people, was like looking at a peacock among a bunch of sparrows. No, _peacock_ wasn’t right, Patrick thought. Peacocks were too colorful, and they were beautiful, but they weren’t—unique or special enough. He tried to think of a beautiful black and white bird.

“What do you know about birds?” he asked Stevie.

“Um, they fly?”

Patrick shook his head, distracted from trying to think of a black bird. “No, they don’t,” he said. “Not all of them.”

“Penguins don’t,” Stevie said.

“Exactly,” Patrick said. Stevie got it.

Penguins were black and white birds, but David wasn’t like a penguin. Penguins were silly, the way they waddled around. David was … elegant. Although David could be silly. How could he have thought Patrick was mad at him? 

He looked over at David again.

Stevie said, “Careful. Your heart eyes are showing.”

Patrick immediately dropped his gaze._ Heart eyes._ Somewhere far away, he was embarrassed, but between being high and Stevie looking at him almost tenderly, it didn’t seem to matter so much.

She patted his knee. 

Stevie was really nice, he thought, even though she was prickly. Patrick was realizing he liked prickly people.

Patrick had a sudden urge to tell Stevie everything, to just spill it all out. But that wasn’t a good idea. He had just met her, and he wanted her to like him. Feelings vomiting all over her about David would make him seem like a crazy person.

_Feelings vomit._ Was that like heart eyes, but grosser? He started laughing to himself. 

“What’s so funny?” Stevie said. 

“Um—” Patrick’s mind was suddenly blank. He tried to remember what he had been thinking about. “You’re really nice,” he said. 

Stevie laughed, and once she started laughing, it was like she couldn’t stop. It made Patrick start laughing too. “That _is_ funny,” she said finally, wiping her eyes.

*

Stevie said, “David, tell Patrick what you did last time you got high.”

“Absolutely not,” David said.

“What did he do?” Patrick asked.

Stevie said, “He called and left a billion messages for this guy—”

Patrick was looking at David, who was looking daggers at Stevie. “It’s okay, don’t tell me,” he interrupted. He thought maybe this was a Sebastien Raine kind of situation.

But Stevie went on, talking over Patrick’s interruption, “—about his plan for the business he wanted to start!”

“I really am going to murder you,” David said.

The tumblers clicked in Patrick’s brain. He said, “Wait, _me?_ Those messages you left for me?”

David ducked his head.

“You were high when you left them?” Patrick laughed. Oh, this was good.

“Wasn’t it obvious?” Stevie said.

Patrick thought back. “Yes, probably,” he said. “I was distracted by—”

David said, “What?” His eyes were narrowed, waiting for the punchline.

Patrick decided to go for it. “By how brilliant they were.” 

“Brilliant?” David said, in this small, soft voice. “You thought my ideas were brilliant?”

Stevie said, “No, he went into business with you because he thought your ideas sucked.”

“That’s true,” Patrick said. “That’s what they teach us in business school, to start with the worst idea possible. It’s more of a challenge that way.”

“Fuck you both,” David said. But he was smiling.

*

Sometime later, he found himself outside with Mia. She was telling him about the apple orchard. She had wanted to leave the noise of the party for a few minutes, and he had been coming out of the bathroom and she had grabbed him and dragged him along.

After awhile, she fell silent, but it didn’t feel awkward. It was nice out here, quiet and cool after the heat and noise of the party. He thought about what Mia had told him earlier.

“Mia,” she said suddenly. 

She looked at him inquiringly.

“I’m gay too,” he blurted.

The world did not stop spinning on its axis. The pleasant night was still pleasant. Patrick’s heart had started pounding, but it gradually slowed.

Mia was smiling that goofy smile again; she was looking at him like they shared a secret, a wonderful secret.

Patrick felt warmed by that smile, but he almost felt he was accepting it under false pretenses. He said, “I’m just realizing it—I’m not—”

She said, “Are you not out to your family either?”

He said, “I’m not out to anyone. Except you.”

Her whole face softened. She started to say something, but at that moment, the front door opened, and a bunch of people spilled out. “Give me your phone,” Mia said.

He took it out, unlocked it, and gave it to her. Her thumbs moved rapidly over the phone, then she gave it back to him. He looked and saw she had created a contact for herself. 

She squeezed his arm. “Call if you ever want to talk,” she said.

David came out then too, behind the crowd of people.

David was looking at them. He glanced at Mia’s hand on Patrick’s arm and raised an expressive eyebrow. Patrick felt the same frustration he’d felt when Alexis was flirting with him, with an extra dose of irony because he’d just _said,_ he’d just _told her—_

_Stop assuming I’m straight,_ he thought, trying to beam the thought into David’s head.

Not that it mattered. He was 100 percent sure, almost 100 percent sure, it would not matter to David one way or the another.

Mia had dropped his arm; she was now talking to someone else, and Patrick pushed all these thoughts out of his head. “Taking off?” he said to David.

“Yeah. Stevie’s just coming. Did you drive here?” David said. “You shouldn’t drive.”

Patrick was still kind of high, but he’d stopped drinking hours ago. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’ll wait to leave until I’m sure I can drive.”

“That,” David said, “sounds like something someone says right before they die horribly in a burning car wreck.”

“I can walk home, if it would make you feel better. It’s not far.”

“Alone?” David looked horrified.

Patrick smiled. He liked how David was fussing over him. “Are you offering me a ride home?”

“Stevie and I walked here—unfortunately,” David said. 

Patrick thought about how nice it would be to walk home with David. But the motel was in the opposite direction from Ray’s.

“I’ll call an Uber,” Patrick said.

“We only have one Uber driver in town, and it’s Ray.”

Of course. Patrick started cracking up. 

David put his hand on Patrick’s shoulder. He said, “I can’t believe you think you’re fine to drive. Look at you.”

“I’m not laughing because I’m high,” Patrick said. “That was just really funny.”

David’s hand was warm on his shoulder. It felt nice, really nice. Really, really nice.

Patrick was about to have one of those broken brain moments, he could feel it.

_David thinks I’m wasted,_ he was thinking. _Wasted people did things like—_

Patrick swayed.

David’s other hand came up. Patrick thought, _this is stupid,_ and tried to right himself—but then he really did lose his balance; he stumbled against David, and David caught him; both of his hands on his arms; one of Patrick’s hands was on David’s chest; he looked up, and their eyes met—

“I’ll drive him home,” said a voice. Mia.

Patrick straightened up. David immediately dropped his hands. Patrick had forgotten Mia was there.

But he couldn’t be mad at Mia. Mia was his friend. His gay friend. His friend he was gay with. 

Stevie came out the front door. “Ready?” she said to David.

“I'm ready," he said.

“Goodnight,” Patrick said to both of them, striving for his usual tone.

David looked back. “Goodnight,” he said.

Patrick couldn’t read his expression. David and Stevie walked away, the black of David’s sweater quickly fading into the night.

*

In the car, Mia said, “So, David, huh?”

Once again, Patrick was struck by how obvious he must be. He thought of what Stevie had told him earlier. _Heart eyes._ Everyone could see it, apparently.

Everyone except David. Except maybe it was obvious to David, too, and David was just being kind, by pretending to be oblivious.

“He’s not interested in me,” Patrick said. 

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“Why do you say that?”

She shrugged. “Just a vibe,” she said.

He tried to ignore the wild hope leaping inside him. He said, remembering his pro and con list, “He’s my business partner. It would be messy.” He ran his hands over his face. “I don’t know how I got into this situation.”

She said, “Do you want to get out of it?”

“What?”

“If I could snap my fingers and put you back to wherever you were before all this, would you do it?”

Patrick thought back to just a few short months ago, when he was first working at Ray’s. Back to before he met David, before he decided to help him with his business. Would he go back to that? Filling out paperwork instead of doing something challenging and demanding and worthwhile. Feeling aimless. Searching for something, but not knowing what. Not knowing who he was, what he could feel.

Not knowing David.

He felt an aching sense of loss, just thinking about it.

She glanced at him. She saw the answer all over his face.

She pulled up in front of Ray’s. “Goodnight, Patrick,” she said. “I mean it—call anytime.”

“Thanks for the ride, Mia. And—for everything.” he said.

He got out and walked around the car to the front door. He heard her window whirring down, and he stopped and turned back.

She leaned out the window. “Hey,” she said. “Dating is messy. Love is messy. Welcome to it.”

She drove off, leaving him standing on the doorstep.


	5. Launch

“Have you asked him out yet?” Mia asked. Patrick was talking on the phone with her before he went to sleep, a habit they’d fallen into.

“No,” he said. “We’re getting ready for the launch. Everything is crazy right now.”

“After the launch then?”

“I told you—” he said, then broke off.

“Do not mention your pro and con list again, Brewer. Because I told _you_—”

_Love is messy,_ she had said. “I remember."

“You are both adults, and you can deal with whatever happens. The store is not going to come crashing down if you ask him on a date.”

He could feel himself weakening. “You need to tell me more about this ‘vibe’,” he said.

“What vibe?”

“When I told you he wasn’t interested in me, you said you thought you felt a vibe.”

“Oh, yeah. I did.”

He said tentatively, “It would help if I had a reason to think he might say yes.” This was the first time he was admitting out loud that he was thinking about it. 

“It was the way he was looking at me when he saw us together at the party,” Mia said. “Like he was trying to figure out if there was something going on between us. He seemed like, extra interested, not just idle curiosity.”

Patrick was disappointed. That wasn’t much to go on. “I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m straight,” he said. 

“Yeah, maybe.”

Patrick said, “Which is funny, because everyone else seems to see right away how I feel. It’s embarrassing. You did. Stevie did.”

“Oh, _Stevie,_” Mia said, and sighed.

“What about her?”

“Nothing. She’s just really hot.”

Patrick thought about that. “Oh. Yes, she’s pretty.”

Mia started laughing.

“What?” he said. “I’m agreeing with you.”

She said, mimicking his polite tone, “‘She’s pretty.’ God, you are so freaking gay.”

Patrick felt something unloosen in his chest, a tightness that he didn’t even know was there, that maybe had been there his whole life. He laughed at the sudden relief of it. “So are you,” he said.

“Yes, I am, and Stevie is super gorgeous.”

“Why don’t you ask her out then?” Patrick said, mockingly.

“Touché,” Mia said. “But you should still ask him.”

*

The launch was only a week away.

Patrick made a list of everything they had left to do, everything color coded as red (highest priority), followed by orange (second highest), yellow, and green. He showed it to David.

David glanced at it. “Red shouldn’t be highest priority,” he said. “Red means stop.” 

“It’s red like red alert,” Patrick said. 

“Mm,” David said. “If you’d asked me, I would have chosen green as top priority. Like a really intense green, like an emerald?”

“David, forget the color,” Patrick said, a little annoyed. But then he looked at David’s face, which was serious and not joking at all, and it was just such a David thing to say that he suddenly wanted to kiss him instead. “What do you think of the things that are on it?”

“Fine.” David took it and studied it. He looked up with panic in his eyes. “We are never going to get all this done, oh my God.”

“We will. Don’t worry,” Patrick said.

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” David said. “No one is going to come.” This was something he'd started saying a lot lately.

“That’s the spirit,” Patrick said, and David gave a little smile that turned into a grimace, and went right back to looking worried.

The stress of the launch was telling on David. He was more irritable, more rigid about getting small details exactly right, while at the same time showing extreme indifference toward things that absolutely needed to get done, like getting business insurance. He'd kind of lost his ability to prioritize. The week before, he’d spent an entire afternoon searching for the “correct” chair for their breakroom in the back, but his specifications were absurdly detailed, and he didn’t find one.

That was part of why Patrick had made this list to begin with. The stress of everything was telling on Patrick too, so much so he hardly had time to feel horny anymore. 

Ha! No, that wasn't true—somehow his body always had time to feel horny around David, it was his default setting, but it was definitely being squeezed in between a lot of other things.

Patrick’s actual, for real red-alert priority was to get David to take a break. David was driving himself really hard—he was actually coming into the store almost as early as Patrick, which was unheard of, and staying late into the evening. He met all of Patrick’s suggestions to take a break with “Maybe later.”

It didn’t help that they had their fair share of disasters that last week. One day, they came in to find that one of the cases of red wine in the storeroom contained two broken bottles, which had slow-leaked overnight all over the floor and a box of candles and—worst of all—a box of cuticle creams that David had spent hours the day before painstakingly labeling. The cream was fine inside the tins, but all the labels were soaked, probably two hundred of them; they’d all have to be scraped off and relabeled.

David wanted to start immediately, but Patrick talked him out of it. “It will take forever,” he said. “We can do it later and still sell them, but I don’t think we’ll have cuticle cream at the opening.”

David got a stubborn look on his face, but he didn’t say anything else.

Patrick was looking at the candles. The wine had soaked through the labels on these as well, and also the wicks. “I don’t think we can save these,” he said. “But maybe we can use them, since we have no lights,” he said pointedly.

One of the red—or emerald, why not—items on Patrick’s list was for David to call the electrician. The lighting in the general store had been overhead fluorescents, which David deemed a violation of his aesthetic and also an affront to common decency everywhere, and one of the first things he’d done was have an electrician rip them out. The electrician was supposed to come back and put in new lights, but he had disappeared.

During the day, the wall of windows let in plenty of light, but when they worked late, which they did often in those last weeks, all they had was a battery powered lamp that Patrick had bought. 

That night, though, they used the ruined candles, which meant they bagged tea and coffee into Rose Apothecary branded bags by the light of wine-scented candles. They talked quietly in hushed tones, and, tired and stressed as Patrick was, it felt wildly romantic.

David stopped bagging tea for a minute. He looked around and said, “This reminds me of an art installation at one of my galleries.”

“How so?” Patrick asked.

“I was seeing this guy, this performance artist. I didn’t usually feature performance art in my galleries, but he—he talked me into giving him a show. One part of his performance involved going around the room and lighting a lot of candles. It was kind of magical.”

“It does sound nice,” Patrick said, looking around the room at the soft glow of the candles.

“After that he doused them with pig’s blood, but, you know.”

Patrick laughed, and so did David, but it sounded bitter. He was looking inward, obviously remembering. Patrick asked, “So what happened to him?”

“Well, it turned out the dating me part was really just about getting into my gallery, and halfway through the show he got a better offer."

That’s how David’s stories about people in his past always seemed to end—_he broke up with me, she left me, they got tired of me._ Always said flippantly, like it was a big joke.

It would be easy to assume that in his previous life, David’s money would have given him some measure of power, but instead it seemed to have mostly enabled his most self-destructive tendencies, and attracted people eager to use him and sponge off of him. Sebastien Raine seemed to be about par for the course. Patrick’s heart ached, thinking about the long string of loneliness and heartbreak that was David’s experience with dating, and, it seemed, with people in general.

David went on, “I didn’t even really like his show that much, other than the candles. To be honest, I didn’t like a lot of the art that I featured in my galleries.”

He glanced over at Patrick, who nodded, encouraging him to go on.

“I like beautiful things,” David said quietly. “In the modern art world, beauty is considered kind of passé, and I was a good trend forecaster.” He broke off and made a self deprecating gesture. “I mean, I thought I was. Now that I know that my parents were just buying all the art anyway, I should have just featured what I liked.”

Patrick said. “Well, you’ve made this store beautiful. And it’s all yours.”

“Yes, that’s true,” David said, giving one of his small smiles.

“And a little bit mine,” Patrick said.

“Mm,” David said, rolling his eyes. He looked around. “It is beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Patrick said softly, watching the play of candlelight over David’s face.

*

One morning later that week, three days before the launch, David suddenly decided that the lotions on the tables were arranged in a way that was an absolute disaster, and they needed to be organized in a totally different way. He spent the morning doing that, and then he hauled out the board he’d gotten at the estate sale in Elmdale, along with some antique hooks he’d found. Patrick was on the phone with the insurance company while he watched David trying to use a screwdriver to attach the hooks to the board. “Fuck!” David finally said, throwing down the screwdriver, after the screw slipped out of his hands yet again.

Patrick said, “I’m going to have to call you back,” to the insurance guy. He came over to where David was working, and knelt by him on the floor.

“Need some help?”

“I’m no good at screwing, all right?” David said, throwing up his hands.

Patrick’s lips twitched. “Are you any good at drilling? Because that’s what you need to do here.”

“Oh God,” David said, realizing what he had just said.

“Lucky for you, I’m very good at drilling _and_ screwing,” Patrick said, and went to get his power drill. “Hold the board still for me,” he said, and David held the board while Patrick drilled some holes, then Patrick held the hooks while David used the screwdriver to turn the screws into the holes, attaching them to the board.

“See, David, you’re not so bad at—” 

“Okay,” David interrupted.

“—manual labor,” Patrick said.

“You can go back to what you were doing now,” David said, waving him away. But then David had to call him back over, to help him hang the board on the wall.

*

Later, Patrick was about to call the insurance guy again finally, when he got a call to play as a sub for the Cafe Tropical team that afternoon. Patrick refused and was telling Joel why he couldn’t, when David started waving his hands and shaking his head vehemently.

“Excuse me,” Patrick said to Joel. He put the phone against his chest. “What?” he said to David.

“You should play,” David said.

“There’s too much to do,” Patrick said.

“You need a break.”

“_You_ need a break,” Patrick countered.

“Look,” David said. “I’ve been driving you crazy. I’ve been driving myself crazy. Would you go? I really want you to go.”

Patrick gave in. He told Joel he could play after all.

He played shortstop, which was one of his favorite positions, and he managed to turn a double play and get a couple of hits. The team won, and as they celebrated and high fived each other on the field, Patrick remembered how much he loved this.

After the game, Patrick checked his phone, and he saw David had texted him.

**David:** found a chair for the breakroom  
**David:** Can you pick up after the baseball  
**David:** also the alpaca throws

He texted the addresses.

Patrick drove to pick up the chair and the blankets. When he pulled up in front of the store, David came out. Patrick got out of the car and went around to open the back door, where the chair was wedged in the back seat. He turned around. David was just standing there by the door.

“You’re still wearing your little outfit,” he said.

Patrick looked down at his baseball uniform. “Yeah, I didn’t have time to change.”

“So did you win? Did you score any touchdowns?”

Patrick smiled. “I did, actually. It was a good game. Thanks for encouraging me to go.”

They unloaded the chair and maneuvered it into the back room, and then Patrick went back and brought in the box of blankets.

“So what did I miss?”

“Oh, nothing,” David said. “I’ve just been scraping off a few labels.” He gestured to the cuticle cream containers.

“David, seriously?”

David looked stubborn. “We can’t open without _cuticle cream!”_

“Oh, right, that’s why we’re called the Rose Cuticle Cream Emporium.” Patrick surveyed the stacks and stacks of little tins. “This must have taken you all afternoon. Did you even eat lunch?”

“I wanted to finish,” David muttered.

Things were really serious, if David was skipping meals. 

“Okay, that’s it,” Patrick said. He took David by the arms and started walking him over to the new chair.

“Whoa, what are you doing?” David said, as Patrick pushed him into it. 

Patrick put his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned over him. “You are going to sit here, and I am going to bring you some lunch.”

David was looking up at him open-mouthed, and then he closed it with a snap. He said, “Ooh, I love being ordered around by a guy in uniform.”

“This isn’t funny, David,” Patrick said, though he felt a jolt. _Wow._ “Stay here,” he said.

Patrick went over to the cafe and ordered a turkey sandwich and fries. While he was waiting for the order, he thought of what David had said, turning it over and over in his mind, trying to analyze the look on David’s face. That was flirting, right? There was no way that wasn’t flirting.

When he got back to the store with the sandwich, David was curled up in the chair, asleep. 

Looking at him, Patrick’s heart swelled in his chest. David looked so sweet and vulnerable in sleep, his hand curled under his chin.

Patrick picked up one of the alpaca throws, and gently tucked it around him. 

David slept for a half an hour, and when he woke up and came out into the main room, he was adorably bleary-eyed, with his hair sticking up. He put his hand up, trying to smooth it down. Patrick felt hot suddenly; suddenly he could see David in bed, just like this, all cute and sleep-rumpled.

Patrick cleared his throat. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” David said.

Patrick made him eat the turkey sandwich. “Have some fries, too,” he said.

“They’re cold,” David complained.

“I’ve seen you eat cold fries before,” Patrick said.

David shrugged as if to say, _point taken,_ and put some in his mouth.

“I’m driving you home, David, and you’re going to take the rest of the day off.” Patrick gestured to himself. “See, I’m still wearing the uniform, so you have to listen.”

David’s threw up his hands. He said, “Okay, fine. But only because I can feel that chair nap did terrible things to my hair.”

“That’s good, do it for your hair,” Patrick said. “Let’s go.”

At the motel, David turned to him and said, “Um, thank you.” He sounded uncertain.

“Get some rest, David,” Patrick said, and David nodded and got out of the car.

Patrick drove back to the store and spent several hours finishing relabeling the cuticle creams. Then he pulled up some YouTube tutorials about electrical wiring. 

*

Their soft launch was a success. All the hard work of the last few months paid off. Patrick spent the day buzzing with the high of a retail success, and whenever he looked over at David he could see he felt the same. 

At the end of the day, they hugged.

Patrick went into the hug with no ulterior motive. It _might_ have been in the back of his head all day that a hug to celebrate their success would be a natural thing to do; and he _might_ have mentally rehearsed a couple of lead-ins that would be appropriate for a congratulatory business partner/friend hug. But that was just because he wanted to make sure he was sending the right signal—that this was a friendly hug, nothing more.

But once he got in David’s arms and felt his soft sweater under his hands, and David's warm, solid chest pressed against his, he suddenly decided that he wouldn’t be the first one to pull back, that he’d let David be the one to break the hug, and then David just—didn’t break it, and they stayed with their arms around each other, and Patrick felt David’s hand moving on his back, actually caressing a little—maybe?—and it all seemed to go on a little too long, where it no longer seemed possible to break the hug in a natural way, like maybe it was something more and maybe David was feeling it too, like actually for real feeling it, not just Patrick’s wishful thinking, like what if, what if he really—

But then the lights flickered, and the spell was broken, and never had Patrick so passionately wished he had called a real electrician, or actually wired the lights properly—like fuck YouTube, seriously.

*

Later that night, lying in bed, he relived that moment, David in his arms, David’s hand caressing his back—and not even for masturbation purposes, although obviously he was going to jerk off here in a minute, that wasn’t in question—but to analyze if what he had felt was really coming from David or if it was just his own fevered imagination. Like did he finally have something to go on, to think maybe, maybe David would say yes if he asked him out?

He took out his phone to text Mia.

**Patrick:** are you up

A minute later, the phone rang in his hand, and he answered it.

“Your grand opening looked like it went well,” Mia said. She had come by, early in the day, and had bought an alpaca throw.

“It really did,” Patrick said. They talked about the opening for a few minutes, and then he said, “So then, at the end of it, we hugged, and I thought maybe I felt something.”

There was a pause.

“You mean, you felt something, like literally _felt something_ …” Mia said delicately.

“No, no, oh my God. I just mean we were hugging and the hug just went on for a long time and it just felt, I don’t know, nice.”

He was blushing, here in the dark. He plowed on.

“Also I think he’s been flirting a little.” He told her about the “man in uniform” comment. Then he said, “Also, he told me I have a clean mouth.”

“I’m going to need the context for that one,” Mia said.

So he told her about how he’d been drinking David’s juice, and David’s speech about clean and sloppy mouths. “So what do you think that means?” he asked.

“He was flirting with you. Think about it—if he wasn’t flirting, what a weird thing that is to say. Would you say that to me?”

“No, I guess not,” Patrick said, his hopes rising.

“Actually, even if he _is_ flirting it’s a weird thing to say, but you seem to like it,” Mia said.

He laughed.

“Ask him out,” Mia said.

“I’m—thinking about it,” he said.

She groaned. “Fine, go make one of your pro and con lists.”

After he hung up, Patrick thought about what Mia had said. He thought about the hug. He thought about the flirting, the maybe-flirting. It’s just—he wished he could be more sure. 

But if he was honest, he would probably never be sure, because he didn’t trust his own judgment on this; he wanted it too much.

Maybe it came down to this: if he didn’t ask David out, he would always wonder what might have happened. Could he live with himself if he never even _tried?_

He took out his phone and texted Mia:

**Patrick:** Okay I’m going to do it

He put down his phone. He should be exhausted from the day; he _was_ exhausted, but now he was also buzzing with adrenaline. How was he ever going to sleep tonight? He might never sleep again. 

His phone buzzed, and he picked it up to see Mia’s reply.

**Mia:** DO IT BREWER GO GET YOUR MAN


	6. Date night

It took Patrick two more weeks to work up the nerve to ask David out.

He’d planned to do it the next day, the day after their launch. He made a plan, and it was a good plan. He had saved the receipt from their first sale; he would get it framed. He would ask David out, he would say, _let me take you out to dinner to celebrate a successful launch._ It was a perfect pretext. They would go to dinner in Elmdale, and he’d give him the receipt, in a frame.

A frame. He squirmed a little, internally, at that, remembering the too-corporate frame he’d gotten for the business license, the frame he still had to look at every day. 

That was the first sign he was going to lose his nerve.

All day, that day after the launch, he was about to do it, all day, as he bantered with David, and they talked about how well the launch went; all day the next words he was about to say were those words, the ones where he asked David out, but at the end of the day he hadn’t done it.

The next day it still didn’t feel too late. All day, again, the words were on the tip of his tongue; and again, at the end of the day he hadn’t done it.

The third day, it was starting to feel too late, too late to celebrate the success of the launch. Their hug felt like an eternity ago. He thought about throwing the receipt away. He hated it whenever he looked at it; it reminded him how he had chickened out. He was sick of himself and his cowardice.

Mia told him, when he said this to her, “You're overthinking this.” And he knew he was. 

Patrick got on the Elmdale events website, looking for an event that might spark David’s interest. There was an outdoor concert in Elm Valley that Patrick would have enjoyed, but he very much doubted that David liked folk music, and Patrick wanted to show that he cared about what David liked. David had dated so many selfish people; Patrick wanted to be the opposite of that. But nothing seemed good enough or interesting enough. He couldn’t imagine asking David to go to something called the Corn Festival. David would say, _ew,_ and look at Patrick like _why would you ask me to go to that? Do you know me at all?_

Then, Patrick found it: the perfect thing, the absolute perfect thing: Runaway Bride was playing at the drive-in. It was in a double feature with Bride of Chucky, but still. That actually made it even more perfect, because they could leave after Runaway Bride, or they could stay and watch Bride of Chucky and laugh at it, laugh at what kind of mind would choose to put those two movies together. 

It was Tuesday; the movie was on Saturday. If Patrick asked David out now for Saturday night, would it be strange working together the five days in the meantime? Should he wait a few more days? Or maybe even until Saturday itself and make it a casual thing, _oh, I have these tickets, do you want to go?_

Patrick decided to get two tickets now to be sure of having them, and then he’d figure it out. He went over to the drive-in after work and bought two tickets. Having them in his hand was very satisfying. It made it all feel real.

But then, the next day, David brought it up, himself, that Runaway Bride was playing at the drive-in, and for one wild moment Patrick thought David was going to ask _him_ out, but then David went on, “They’re playing it with some godawful horror movie that Stevie likes, which is just typical of this town. Anyway we agreed she’d watch Runaway Bride if I would watch … this other thing.”

“So you’re going with Stevie?” Patrick said, feeling like the words were choking him.

“I’m doing it for Julia,” David said with an air of martyrdom.

So, that was that. Patrick should have asked him yesterday. God, he was an idiot. He’d never get an opportunity as good as that one again. He ripped up the stupid tickets. Maybe the universe was telling him he missed his chance.

“You haven't missed your chance,” Mia told him. "There's no expiration date on asking him out." 

Mia was keeping him sane.

Patrick thought about asking David to dinner, because you can’t go wrong with that, right? There were a few nice restaurants in Elmdale, and Patrick read online reviews to try to find the best, the nicest, the most romantic one, and tentatively narrowed it down to the Elmdale Bistro. He Googled “restaurants near me” to make sure he hadn’t missed any, and was amused to find that Cafe Tropical had an online review, only one, two words long: _moderately edible. _

That got him started thinking, though, that maybe he should forget about Elmdale, forget about finding the nicest restaurant, that maybe a casual dinner was better. That would take the pressure off both of them, and the date itself, so that if David said no—which Patrick still thought was more than 80 percent likely—or it went badly, they could more easily recover and go back to being friends, and Patrick could try to move on, try to get over David. 

Although he had a really hard time imagining how that would be possible. His crush on David was starting to feel like it was encoded in his DNA.

*

Then, a third opportunity fell in his lap. It was David’s birthday, and his family had forgotten, and David didn’t have any plans. Patrick told himself that if he let this one go by, he didn’t deserve to go on a date with David, or really, have anything good happen to him ever again.

He said, quickly, before he could chicken out again, “We could go for a birthday dinner?” 

David paused for what felt like an eternity. Then he said,“You don’t have to do that." 

“No, I’d like to.” Ugh, he could hear his voice crack, too high, nervous. 

And David said yes. He said yes. Actually, he said _sure,_ but Patrick wasn’t quibbling.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of customers and Patrick’s mind skittering in twenty different directions; high-fiving himself for finally, finally doing what he’d thought about for so long; thinking about what he was going to wear; mentally reviewing all the clothes in his closet and then reviewing them again, thinking surely there was something else, some magically perfect item of clothing that he just wasn’t remembering; thinking about what might happen on the date, especially what might happen at the end of the date, his brain catching on that like a record skipping.

“You’re quiet today,” David said, making Patrick jump. He looked over at David, who was restocking the wine shelf.

Patrick cleared his throat. “Oh, just, uh, thinking,” he said. 

“What about?”

_About our date. Tonight. At the cafe. What else could I possibly be thinking about?_ He looked at the wine in David’s hands. “About—wine. And the … cafe. Getting the cafe to serve local wine?”

David face changed. Patrick could see the struggle play out across his face—David thought this was a good idea, but he felt that this was a decision that should fall under the David umbrella in their division of labor.

“Hm,” David said.

“Just think,” Patrick said, warming up, because now that he’d said it, it _was_ a good idea. “More publicity for us, and when customers at the cafe drink it and like it, Twyla could point them to us to get a bottle to take home.”

“Hm. Well, that’s something to, uh, think about,” David said grudgingly. He turned back to the wine shelf.

“Sure,” Patrick said, amused. With a glow of pleasure, he thought about the fact that he was going out with this man, tonight. He was taking him out for his birthday.

_Shit._ it was David’s _birthday_. Suddenly everything else was driven from Patrick's head by one urgent thought: he had to get him a present. What could he get him? He’d have to go to Elmdale. He’d have to go right after they closed. He should just have time to get there and back before 8:00.

Usually, Patrick liked to take his time closing, and David seemed to as well. Patrick reconciled the till while David swept. Patrick wiped the windows while David put away the produce and delivered very specific judgments on all their customers’ style choices. It was Patrick’s favorite part of the day. But today he jumped efficiently from task to task, anxious to be done.

“So I’ll see you at 8:00,” Patrick said, as they locked up. David nodded at him with a little smile, and this was great. Everything was great. Except that it was nerve-wracking and terrifying. But it was great. 

He had two and half hours.

He called Mia on the way to Elmdale. “I’m taking David out tonight,” he said. He cut off her shrieks of excitement by saying, “It’s his birthday. I need ideas for a present.”

“You already have a present. The receipt from your first sale. Give him that.”

“That’s not a birthday present,” he objected. “That was for the launch. I’m on my way to Elmdale.”

“What are you going to get him there? A pen? A Walmart gift card?”

“That’s why I’m calling you. To help me think of something.”

“In Elmdale? There’s nothing.”

He said, “Oh, come on. There have to be shops around here that have good gifts.”

“Well,” Mia said slowly. “I do know this one place.”

“Great, where?”

“They sell one of kind products, all locally sourced. Let me think, what’s the name? Rose something?”

“Oh, you’re funny.”

He was on the outskirts of Elmdale now. He looked around, hoping for inspiration. He saw a vape store, a tire shop, a teriyaki place. Nope, nope, and nope.

Patrick clutched the phone tightly against his ear. “I need to come up with a plan, Mia,” he said. His voice went up at the end, wavering. God.

“Listen,” Mia said. “You have a plan. A good plan. A framed receipt says I care about you, let’s be boyfriends. A pen says let’s be nothing but business partners forever.”

“I wasn’t actually thinking of getting him a pen,” he said, testily.

“I know the decisions you make when you’re panicked, Brewer.”

After he got off the phone, he kept driving further into Elmdale, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Maybe Mia was right. What was he going to find here, among these strip malls and big box stores, especially for someone with such particular tastes as David, in the half an hour before he had to head back to Schitt’s Creek?

So, he’d have to go with the receipt, then. That meant he needed a frame. He thought again of the day he’d given David his business license in its too-corporate frame. He was such a wreck that day. Kind of like now.

He thought about that frame, the one he had to look at every day. He had to look at it every day … because David had never replaced it. 

Feeling suddenly energized, he saw an office supply store and pulled into the parking lot. Inside, he found the frame section and looked carefully at each one, picturing David standing next to him, whispering comments in his ear: _silver, too corporate; plastic, cheap and tacky; gold, ugh, what is this? Trump Tower?_ and finally picked a plain wooden black one. He got a gift bag and tissue paper. 

He also got a pen for Mia. Why not? _ What? You were talking about pens so much I assumed you wanted one._

When he got back in the car, he looked at the dashboard clock. It was 7:00. He had just enough time to get back to Ray’s, get the gift ready, change into … something, and be at the cafe by eight. In an hour, he would be on a date with David.

*

He was _not_ on a date with David. 

He was in the bathroom at Cafe Tropical. He was hiding in a stall and he wanted to die. 

It had been okay at first—he thought it was going well, even. They had fallen into their usual banter, making fun of the cafe; Patrick was glad he had gone the casual route. The blazer he’d put on, in a last minute panic, was stupid, obviously the wrong thing, but David told him he looked nice, and Patrick had made a joke about it and it seemed okay. 

David looked fantastic in a sweatshirt with a big lightning bolt on it, his hair swept up in its usual perfect pompadour, and Patrick was just thinking about how much he wanted to get his hands in that hair to mess it up, when Stevie showed up.

David had invited Stevie on their date. 

What did it mean? Patrick was piecing it together, here in the bathroom. David must have called Stevie after Patrick had asked him to dinner; he had asked her advice for how to let him down easy; they had talked it over, and decided having Stevie show up was the best, the nicest way to let Patrick know this wasn’t a date. 

The only other explanation was that David was oblivious, that he didn’t realize Patrick had asked him on a date. _Wishful thinking,_ Patrick told himself. But okay, there was maybe a chance, a 1% chance, a .0001% chance, that David really was that oblivious.

Was he nice, or oblivious? Those were the only two options.

Either way, it was clear what Patrick had to do now—it was still David’s birthday, and David was his friend. Patrick was not going to ruin his birthday dinner by spending all night pouting in the bathroom. It wasn’t David’s fault Patrick had gotten his stupid hopes up.

Nothing to do but put a brave face on it and go back. _Come on, Brewer. Buck up._

He went back to the table, and as he approached, he saw there was no end to his humiliation, apparently. His present was sitting on the table like a big, dumb centerpiece, and as he sat down Stevie crowed at David to _open it, open it;_ Patrick tried to pull the present back; he was babbling, saying anything—anything to get David to stop, to stop this moment from happening, this awful parody of what he had imagined. But David pulled the present towards him and he was going to open it, he was opening it, here, now, in front of Stevie and everyone; everything was terrible; why had Patrick thought this was a good idea—God, he was sweating, that was one good thing about wearing the blazer, it would hide the sweat stains—now David was taking the frame out of the bag, now he was looking at it.

Patrick said, “See? It’s nothing.”

David looked up. His expression was soft. He was touched. He liked it; he actually liked it.

“This is not nothing,” he said. “So thank you.” 

Patrick couldn’t say anything, he was too overwhelmed.

Then a bunch of things happened at once: Twyla came by with some mozzarella sticks they hadn’t ordered, and said she was leaving, and Stevie suddenly announced she was leaving too. There was some kind of undercurrent going on between David and Stevie, but Patrick couldn’t take it in, because David was still looking at him with that soft smile. He’d never looked at him like that before. 

After Stevie left, David said, “This is a very solid frame.”

“Thank you, I’m learning,” Patrick said, dryly, thinking of his earlier freakout.

They toasted with their mozzarella sticks. 

Maybe this wasn’t such a disaster after all.

_Nice, or oblivious?_

Patrick cleared his throat. “You know, I was promised a wine pairing with these,” he said, holding up a second mozzarella stick. “What goes with freezer burn?” 

“Oh, white, definitely,” David said without hesitation.

Patrick laughed. Twyla was gone, so George came over to take their order. Patrick ordered a BLT, and David ordered chicken tenders. “And two glasses of chardonnay,” David said.

“Chicken tenders? After mozzarella sticks?” Patrick said after George left.

“I will not be shamed about my food choices on my birthday,” David said. 

George came back with their wine. Patrick held up his glass. “Well, happy birthday, David,” he said.

David clinked his glass, and they both drank.

“Ew,” David said, looking into his glass. “It is truly impressive how bad this wine is.”

Patrick took another sip of his wine and sighed. “Yes. If only there was a place nearby, somewhere that carried a carefully curated selection of local wines, that could offer a discount in exchange for a bulk order?”

“Hm,” David said, giving him his haughtiest, _that’s enough out of you_ look.

When George came back with their food, David said, “Have you ever thought about offering local wines?”

Patrick sat back to admire David in sales mode. His sales technique was a mixture of charm and imperiousness that was surprisingly effective. Patrick jumped in with some details about how the practical aspects would work, and at the end of it George was nodding.

When he left, David said, “Well, it looks like he liked our idea.”

“I’m sorry, _our_ idea?” Patrick said.

David waved a hand. “Anything to do with the store is automatically ours.”

“Except, of course, when it’s yours.”

“Naturally,” David said, looking at him sideways, with a little crooked smile.

“Mm hm,” Patrick said. He took another sip of his wine. For terrible wine, it actually tasted pretty great.

*

“I’d like it if someone threw me a surprise party,” Patrick said. “I’ve never had one." They had finished their food and were on their third glass of wine. They were talking about birthday parties.

David cringed and shook his head with his whole body. “Ugh, not me,” he said. “Surprise parties are so tacky.”

“I think it’s nice. You get all the fun of the party without having to plan it or worry about it beforehand.”

“Do you worry about things a lot, beforehand?” David asked. 

“Yeah, well, worry isn’t the right word. Analyze. Overanalyze. Sometimes I wish I could be more—”

“More what?” David quirked one eyebrow.

Patrick realized he didn’t really know how to finish that sentence. He’d been remembering how much he’d been overthinking asking David out on this date. “Impulsive,” he said.

“Oh, impulsive. Like offering to go into business with someone you’ve just met? Is that the kind of impulsive thing you’d never do?”

Patrick thought about that, and also his decision to leave Rachel, which had been pretty sudden. Two of the best decisions he’d ever made, he thought. Maybe he could be impulsive. Sometimes.

George came back. “Anything else?”

“Dessert?” Patrick asked David. “It is your birthday.”

“Well, I’m not going to say no, so.”

Patrick listened, amused, to a long conversation between David and an increasingly impatient George as David quizzed him about the different desserts and debated the pros and cons of each. He finally settled on a piece of chocolate cake.

After George went away again, David said, “So when is your birthday?”

“It was three months ago. So, sorry, David, you can’t throw me a surprise party.” 

David huffed out a breath. “Well, I obviously wasn’t planning on doing it _this_ year. That wouldn’t be a surprise.”

Patrick picked up his wine and took a swallow. He had just meant to tease, since David said surprise parties were tacky. But David had actually sounded serious, and Patrick’s heart sped up at the idea that David had been thinking about throwing him a surprise party a_ year_ from now.

“Well,” Patrick said finally, “Since you hate surprises, I promise never to surprise you on _your_ birthday.”

“Mm,” David said. “It might be too late for that, actually.” 

Patrick was silent. There was a warm note in David’s voice that dripped like a drug into his bloodstream.

*

They were sitting in the car, in front of the motel.

“Well, that was a fun night,” David said.

Patrick replied, he said something anyway, but his mind was racing so fast so he hardly knew what he was saying. _Kiss him. Just kiss him, just try. Be impulsive, if you can call it impulsive when you’ve been wanting to do it for months._

A little silence fell. David was looking at him. 

_Do it._ But Patrick was frozen. He felt pinned down by his seatbelt; his arm slung over the car door was like lead; why had he put it there? He couldn’t move it, it was too heavy; the distance between him and David was an unbridgeable chasm, never had his little Toyota seemed so big—a midsize, at least. 

_Kiss him. Do it now._ His eyes flicked to David’s mouth, his lips. But he didn’t move.

Then—incredibly—David was leaning over to him, _David_ was bridging the unbridgeable chasm. As soon as it registered that this was really happening, Patrick leaned in, lunged in really, to meet David partway, and David’s hand was cupping his cheek, and their lips met and David’s lips were so soft and his stubble was so scratchy and that softness and that roughness together was intoxicating; oh God, is this what kissing was supposed to feel like? Patrick felt, he didn’t know what he felt, he never knew he could feel this, it was like he’d spent his whole life on the wrong side of the glass, stuck out in the cold, looking in, and now he was inside, he was finally on the right side of the glass, where it was warm; he was warm; he was on fire.

The kiss lasted a few seconds, at most. David was pulling back.

Patrick opened his mouth—he wanted to say so much, tell David so much, but what came out of his mouth was “thank you.”

“For what?” David said, so then Patrick had to explain, oh crap. But he did—it all came tumbling out, how he’d never kissed a guy before, how much he’d wanted it to happen tonight but he was scared he wouldn’t do it. And probably a bunch of other stupid, not first-date appropriate things, but it didn’t matter, David was looking at him and smiling. And they had kissed. That had really happened.

There was so much more Patrick wanted to say but he managed to shut up; this moment was so perfect, he should wait. They should wait. “Can we talk tomorrow?” Patrick said. Maybe by tomorrow he wouldn’t be fizzing and bubbling inside so much and could string some coherent thoughts together. 

“We can talk whenever you’d like,” David said, and it was amazing to watch David’s mouth move and hear him talk and know that he’d kissed that mouth. They had kissed. David had kissed him; David had wanted to kiss him and he did.

David got out of the car. Patrick watched him as he went into his room. He thought David was smiling.

*

That night, as he was trying to go to sleep, Patrick relived that moment, again and again, David’s lips on his, David smiling at him. 

He’d kissed a guy, now. He remembered how he’d hesitated to say the words _I’m gay_ because he hadn’t actually done anything with a guy. Now he had.

Patrick thought back further, way back—he remembered his first hike up to Rattlesnake Point, the day after he’d met David, when he’d thought _I’m probably gay,_ and he’d heard that internal voice for the first time, what he called his gay Patrick voice, saying:

_Kiss him and you’ll know for sure._

Now he’d kissed him, and he knew for sure.

_See?_ said that voice. And he knew it was his voice, his own voice. Being smug. Typical.

He took out his phone. It was late but maybe Mia was still up.

**Patrick:** we kissed

**Mia:** Oh my god that’s great

**Patrick:** you were right

**Mia:** always  
**Mia:** what was i right about this time  
**Mia:** the frame?

**Patrick:** yes  
**Patrick:** also  
**Patrick:** that i’m so freaking gay

Mia sent him a rainbow and a heart and a bunch of exclamation points, which is pretty much how he felt right now.

He and David had kissed. They were going to talk tomorrow. 

They would kiss again tomorrow. Probably. Definitely, if he had anything to say about it. 

He couldn’t wait.


End file.
